69. Blood, Slaughter, and Fire

A short while later.

A middle-aged bald man with a bare torso and a cigarette clenched between his teeth came stomping down the stairs, hitching up his trousers. The moment he lifted the curtain, he saw Old Yu standing there in a single thin garment.

He barked, “Didn’t I tell you to get lost? Why have you come back? I already told you—you’ve signed the property-transfer contract. Taking this to court won’t do you any good.”

“Now get lost!”

The bald man, his face crowded with coarse flesh, glared viciously and raised his fist to strike. He was far too accustomed to using violence against the weak.

Who could have known that, in the darkness, a young boy had repeated the simplest sword form thousands, even tens of thousands, of times every day?

Thus, passed down by word of mouth from one generation of students to the next, the Inner Academy became the sacred ground in the hearts of all students.

Compared with the current record holder for the longest stay on the Billboard album chart, “The Dark Side of the Moon,” which had remained for eight hundred and ninety-two weeks, a single’s time on the chart was almost unimaginably brief.

If Yan Jichang, noble heir that he was, had no son, how could he rightfully inherit the marquisate?

At these words, several people gave a cold laugh. The surrounding air seemed to be crushed beneath an oppressive force of sheer presence, driving the oxygen from the field. The portly prince, the goateed man, and the ministers and guards around them all felt a suffocating, nauseating sensation that made breathing difficult.

Yan Qining hid behind Yan Jin. As she gazed at Yan Jin’s imposing back and the pale, jade-like skin exposed at his neck, a sudden bitterness rose in her heart.

These people had come here precisely because they wanted her to go with them to the Golden Triangle region. Would she go? Of course not.

“What do you mean? Am I very savage? Hmph. This Old Third Ou—I’m really going to show him just how savage I can be. He said that if I went, he’d let me kick him. So I’m really going to kick him.”

Whenever the Ten Thousand Fiends True Domain opened, many ancient forces throughout the four seas would solemnly warn their younger generations never to attempt to approach that land of death.

Tang Qiqi discovered that Qi Yan’s tall body stood before her, shielding her completely. Though he blocked half her view, every word spoken by Yellow Hair still reached her ears without omission.

Seeing the gruesome scene of red and white spread across the ground, several black-clad brutes of weak resolve had already bent over and begun vomiting, tears and mucus streaming together from their eyes and noses. Their minds had clearly been overwhelmed. Even the Nascent Soul cultivator’s face had turned deathly pale.

Ding Zhongyin and Yang Zhongzheng led more than a dozen generals, braving the wind and snow. They sat astride their horses with their blades planted upright, waiting in silence.

He had heard that Gu Peng himself had taken the field to direct and arrange everything, and had patiently revised the deployment several times before finally stopping.

Although the earlier confrontation with Fang Xirou and the masked man had consumed some of his true energy, escaping this binding formation would not be difficult.

Simon [Sniper]: “Actually, if you want to combat crime, your position gives you safer and more effective options.”

His features and build were still no different from those of an ordinary person, but the outline of his figure kept trembling and twisting. Threads of black drifted into the surrounding air and vanished without a trace, only to receive more from some inexplicable place.

Singed [Alchemist]: “The two of you aren’t blind… so is there something wrong with your brains?”

Yet the young man did not even blink. He simply stood there, motionless, facing the oncoming force of the punch.

Using those materials to create a legitimate knockoff should not be too difficult. And it ought to be possible to make a smartphone, right?

“Cough, cough—gaaah!” Feraligatr clutched its throat and collapsed in agony. It had inhaled quite a bit of smoke; it must have been suffering terribly.

An examination of the breach revealed that the pyramid’s structure was extremely rigorous, built in an interlocking, cross-layered configuration. Even after part of it had been damaged, the main body would not immediately collapse. Thus, even if an armored rolling blade bug tore a huge opening through the middle, the structure as a whole would remain solid and stable.

All he felt was a chill in his hand. It seemed as though two vicious venomous dragons were concealed within the bone spines, radiating the aura of death. Whoever touched them would have their soul and life force devoured completely.