by <unknown>
"Now, let's go!"
A row of nine people once again headed into the jungle, walking at the edge of the jungle, flanking the main battlefield.
En route, they were on tiptoes. They proceeded very carefully, they dared not make even an iota of noise.
By their estimate, since the beginning of the chaos in the jungle, Li Yao must have assassinated many core members of Iron Fist Club to ensure that a balance was maintained between both sides.
At present, in the chaotic battle happening in the jungle, maybe Chaos Edge Hall's members were relatively greater in number.
Therefore, they did not dare to call for support.
If, out of a one in a million chance, they attracted the attention of Chaos Edge Hall's remnant forces, they would just be making a fool of themselves in trying to do the smart thing.
Fortunately, luck seemed to be on their Iron Fist Club's side. As they walked in a big circle, after flanking round half of the jungle, they had not encountered even a member of Chaos Edge Hall.
And of course, they also didn't see any member of Iron Fist Club. From the very beginning, they were walking at the remote edges of the jungle which was full of swamps, vines, and mist, making their visibility range no more than three to five meters, after which everything seemed to be vague.
"After half an hour, we'll be at the Iron Fist Club base, and that would mark our win!"
While cutting the vines blocking the way, Lu Tieshan turned his head to cheer the rest.
Followed by responses in low voices from the mist behind him.
Only God knows why but an extremely uncomfortable feeling welled up from Lu Tieshan's heart.
It seemed as though a poisonous snake was wrapped around his collar, crawling down his spine.
Lu Tieshan suddenly halted his footsteps as he tightly clenched his fists to the point that blue veins bulged on the back of his fists.
One by one, from the vague mist, came his team members.
"One, two, three...six?
"Where are the other two?
"Yan Qi, Wan Zhixing!"
Everyone gawked at each other. The last member of the Iron Fist Club subconsciously retreated two steps and walked back into the mist; he thought he could go back and find his disappeared companions.
Following which, they felt as though a cool breeze brushed their faces; everyone's heart was grabbed by a chill.
"Bang!"
From the fog, a sound of something heavy falling on the ground came.
Or perhaps, a person had fallen on the ground.
"Enemy attack!"
In the blink of an eye, the remaining six members felt a chill running down their spine as they quickly converged and entered a battle formation.
Their slightly vibrating, iron fists aimed at the fog in all directions.
Under the cover of the fog, the jungle seemed terrifyingly ominous. From among the branches in the surroundings, the occasional chirps of birds made the environment ever tenser.
Suddenly—
A black silhouette jumped out of the fog!
Three Iron Fist Club members roared as they stepped forward and punched hard towards the oncoming black silhouette.
However, when they found out that it was none other than their unconscious companion upon looking carefully, they forcefully pull back their hands, which in turn, made their movements completely out of order and subsequently opened a big gap.
One of them could not control his momentum and staggered.
"Whoosh!"
From behind the black silhouette, a second black silhouette jumped out, made his way through the gap between the three in a flash, and appeared before the remaining people.
"Crack! Crack! Crack!"
The body of the man burst with dazzling electric arcs as he tumbled down to the ground with a stunned look, where he lay, twitching.
In contrast, the remaining four had even more astounded looks painted on their faces.
The one who had appeared before them was none other than the guy who should have been long dead, Li Yao!
Li Yao seemed like a ghost who had crawled his way out of the underworld, as he quietly watched them.
Furthermore—
Not only did he have a scimitar in his hands, his elbow, knees, soles of his feet, all happened to have curved, protruding parts, all of which had gleaming blades fixed to them.
Every time he elbowed, kneed, or kicked, each hit would cause devastating damage.
From how he appeared, armed like a steel hedgehog, it clearly indicated that he in no way had encountered them by chance, but planned on killing them!
A rift seemed to have appeared in between Lu Tieshan's organs, through which his heart fell into a bottomless abyss!
Lu Tieshan somehow mustered up his courage and stepped forward. On one side, he gave a signal behind his back, hinting for the companion who had the real jade chip to act if any opportunity presented itself, while on the other hand, he would stall for time as he asked in a loud voice, "Li Yao, how come you aren't dead?!"
Li Yao smiled slightly as he reached to his abdomen and pressed a bit. Suddenly, his body burst forth with a blood color aura as a couple dozen lightning arcs escaped his body.
Despite the bloody aura and electric arcs, he didn't appear to be in any kind of discomfort; to Lu Tieshan's question, he replied, "I have crafted a very common device. I'm even embarrassed to call it a magical equipment as it doesn't have any kind of ability whatsoever. All it can do is emit some bloody aura and electric arcs, which looks like a real one, giving others the impression that I am grievously injured, nothing more nothing less."
Lu Tieshan was rendered speechless. His pair of eyes were almost on the verge of bleeding. Having been stunned for a long while, Lu Tieshan disappointedly said, "There is still something I don't understand. How come you knew Zhao Tianchong would set an ambush at his base, and why did you warn me?"
Li Yao replied, "In the final analysis, it was because of your oversight. If we had thrown caution to the wind and set out to find your corpse, it would have been all right!"
Having paused a bit, he continued, "I was not completely sure Zhao Tianchong would set an ambush. However, since the main battlefield was going to be the canyon region, the Chaos Edge Hall was quite likely to become an important site of the fight. If it was me, setting some assassins in advance was quite normal indeed!"
"As for reminding you, it's very simple actually! I don't wish the Chaos Edge Hall to acquire the jade chip."
"Only if Iron Fist Club had the jade chip, would they need to pass through the entire forest, only then would I have the opportunity to easily hunt you down."
"Very good!"
Lu Tieshan burst into laughter. As Lu Tieshan clenched his fists and struck them against each other, an incomparably ruthless expression crept on his face, "Li Yao, you are really formidable. Everything has been playing out in the palm of your hand. All right, the jade chip is with Your Father, you want it, come and get it!"
"The jade chip is not on you but on that young fellow behind you who is ready to make trouble, his name is Ma Feixing, a 3rd level Refinement Stage expert. He specialized in Electro Steps. His speed is quite astounding. If you and I fight for a while, he really might get away with it.
"However, it's useless anyway."
Li Yao tapped the Demon Beast Detector and calmly said, "I had immersed the true jade chip in a specially prepared dark phosphorous solution, as a result of which it will emit UV lights which will be invisible to naked eye, but I have tweaked my Demon Beast Detector and added a UV Detecting Glyph.
"In my eyes, the true jade chip is like a firefly in a dark night. It is so bright and eye-catching that I can detect it from a couple dozen meters away.
"This is also the reason as to why I was able to lock onto you in this fog."
Before his voice faded away, Li Yao's figure, like a true ghost, disappeared and reappeared between the four before his figure rotated at high speed, turning into a sto
rm!
"Ma Feixing, get going!"
Lu Tieshan burst into a shout, as his huge stature blocked Li Yao's path completely.
However, much to everyone's surprise, Li Yao fiercely threw the scimitar in his left hand which drew an incomparably strange arc and plunged right into Ma Feixing's left leg.
Whereupon, Ma Feixing staggered and fell forward.
The next thing that followed happened in half a second.
Li Yao's right hand flashed with a sharp gleam as it easily cut across Lu Tieshan's neck.
At the same time, he jumped into the air, stepped on Lu Tieshan's shoulder and crossed Lu Tieshan's neck, like a hawk pouncing towards a rabbit, ruthlessly kneed the remaining two Iron Fist Club members right on their chests.
The fierce knee strikes, along with the momentum of the blades, made the two fly backwards while their chests burst forth with a lot of electric arcs.
Li Yao like a giant owl once again rose into the air and glided to the front of Ma Feixing. The moment he landed on the ground, his elbow cut through a majority of Ma Feixing's neck arteries while his five fingers ran across Ma Feixing's waist.
Clutching his throat, he glared at the electric sparks that gushed through the gap between his fingers as he gradually fell down.
The moment before his demise, his staring, round eyes saw Li Yao putting the jade chip in his bosom before quickly disappearing into the fog without even taking a glance at them; shooting towards the north.
Chapter 204: The Invitation of Long Wenhui |
When Li Yao boisterously crossed through the canyon and appeared at the contact point of the Starfire Union carrying the jade chip, the huge campus entered a strange silence for an entire five minutes.
The Thunderbolt Cup at the Wasteland Battle Network happened to have not a single thread posted for a good long while.
Everyone was shocked in disbelief.
Only after a long while did someone make a short post:
"This match will be remembered for the next five decades to come!"
This post ignited all the emotions of everyone. In the blink of an eye, hundreds of thousands of posts flooded the Battle Network:
"So powerful, so crazy, this is truly shocking!"
"What's the matter, why has Li Yao not come out yet?"
"1 vs 2,000, he really did it!"
"Zhao Tianchong is smart, Lu Tieshan is calm and stable. These two aren't people who can be easily fooled. All of the traps set by Li Yao had indeed been seen through by them, but who would have thought that all these traps were just bait to hide the last but the deadliest trap!"
Every student's heart, who had watched the match, was in turmoil. They could not calm themselves down for a long while.
If it was someone who didn't know the details of the match, saw the outcome, he would definitely think that the members of Chaos Edge Hall and Iron Fist Club were morons who couldn't even catch a single person even when their numbers reached 2,000.
Only those who had watched the match from beginning to end knew full well that both sides had done their best. Basically, they did not make any mistakes.
If it was someone else, perhaps he or she would have been assassinated at the very beginning or would have been unable to notice the remote-controlled shuttle camouflaged as a rock, or maybe he or she would have found the first, or maybe second, but would not have broken open the second shuttle to check inside.
As long as anyone committed any of these mistakes, Li Yao would not have gone through so much trouble and would have long won!
It was the high-level plays of Zhao Tianchong and Lu Tieshan which forced Li Yao to resort to any means necessary; this resulted in a brilliant match!
In a moment, the entire campus was covered in a hubbub of marvel, sighs, retrospections...almost 30 to 50% of all the students had gathered together and were excitedly discussing the match.
Many students who were relatively slow were still muddleheaded until this moment. They kept pestering others with questions.
"Wait, please tell me, why did Li Yao intentionally reveal the ambush at Chaos Edge Hall's base?"
At the VIP room, although the high-level figures from various cultivation sects weren't speaking, the surprised look was still dangling on their faces.
Long Wenhui sighed with relief as he gradually said, "Old Bai, if you were the leader of Iron Fist Club, how would have you dealt with this?"
Bai Mushen's complexion became dignified as he slowly replied, "It's quite difficult. Every trap has flaws. Obviously, the series of traps set by Li Yao had a multitude of flaws. Since we are viewing from sideline, and discussing after everything had occurred, we can obviously find ways to deal with them from theories.
"But in combat, in order to crack those plans, there are three prerequisites.
"First, the leader of both sides need to have high-level leadership skills. Their commands should be like arms directing the fingers.
"Second, their men need to be extremely clear headed. They should always do as they are told, never disobey. No matter what, they should not be incited or affected by rage.
"Third, both sides must have absolute trust in each other. Both sides should have treated Li Yao as their biggest enemy and should have sincerely cooperated."
Bai Mushen bitterly smiled and continued, "However, in combat, these three prerequisites cannot be achieved.
"The 2,000 contestants were all hot-headed and happened to have conflicts with each other. How can they obey orders like a well-trained elite army?
"However...
"I suspect Li Yao of exploiting the rules by disguising his injuries.
"In combat, injuries are injuries, no appearance of electric arcs and bloody aura would impair the enemy's judgment."
Long Wenhui said with a smile, "In reality, there are many human cultivators and demon beasts who practice special techniques which can feign death or fall in suspended animation.
"Moreover, in combat, Chaos Edge Hall simply didn't need to go and seize jade chip. Their purpose was to fight Iron Fist Club. Had they cooperated with Li Yao, they could have dealt a heavy blow to Iron Fist Club. Why did they go through so much hassle?
"That's why, they soon fell deeply into Li Yao schemes, and ever so quickly crumbled."
Long Wenhui shrugged his garlic-shaped nose as he said with a smile to Xiong Baili who was sitting next to them, "Dean Xiong, I would like to talk to Student Li Yao alone, is it possible?"
...
Southwest of Wild Waves City, on a secluded walk next to a quiet artificial lake.
Having finished the match, Li Yao, without even clearly looking at what the Thunderbolt Cub looked like, ran all the way there non-stop. His chest heaved up and down, his heart beat like drums.
In front of him was an ordinary looking, bulbous-nosed man in a gandoura [1] with wide sleeves. It was none other than the Vice-President of Hundred Saber Alliance, the Core Formation Stage powerhouse, Long Wenhui.
It was the person who had captured Demon King Pieu at Verdant Tarn City!
He was truly an illustrious and important figure of Federation.
Li Yao's heart beat quickly with tension, apprehension, envy, worship, thirst...all kinds of complex emotions, gathered into flickering flames.
Long Wenhui, on the other hand, didn't put on any airs. His gait itself was somewhat lazy, giving the impression that, apart from on the battlefield, he had no intention of spending even an iota of his strength.
Long Wenhui leisurely said, "Student Li Yao, it's not the first time we have seen each other. At the Verdant Tarn City, you inadvertently spied on my recently refined double-edge saber, only to end up treated as an enemy by my saber. At that time, I firmly remembered you.
"A Refinement Stage cultivator who has yet to become twenty can actually make my blade have hostile intentions is definitely not some ordinary character!
"Therefore, when I came to know that you alone would be fighting against 2,000 members of the Combat Department in t
his year's Thunderbolt Cup, I especially came to watch, and as expected, you didn't let me down.
"I really want to know, how you thought of those schemes?"
Li Yao was taken by surprise. How could he have ever imagined an honorable Core Formation Stage Cultivation such as Long Wenhui especially came for him.
However, from the beginning, Li Yao was someone who was heaven-daring. Having noticed Long Wenhui had converged his energy, and amiable in nature, just like any ordinary uncle from the neighborhood, the tension in Li Yao's heart abated gradually before Li Yao spoke frankly, "It's actually nothing. I grew up in Magical Equipment Graveyard. Since the time I can remember, I, just for a piece of bread or half a bottle of water, had to fight and scheme. I was small and weak and didn't like joining gangs. So, if I wanted to contend with those vicious adults, all I could do was use my head.
"Since I was eight, I lived in Magical Equipment Graveyard, which housed a total of fifteen different gangs. All of which consisted of tall and robust adults.
"Whichever gang it was, they could crush me quite easily.
"But amid the cracks between these gangs, I survived. I lived very well!
"After ten years, when I was alive and well on my eighteenth birthday, of the fifteen gangs only four remained!
"A lot of things have long integrated with my blood and turned into a kind of instinct. What appears to be sinister schemes in Zhao Tianchong's and Lu Tieshan's eyes, are as normal as using chopsticks to eat to me."
Long Wenhui slowed down his footsteps. "Very good!
"Student Li Yao, let's be honest with each other, what say you? I very much like you; I believe you are a rare genius, and I’m here to formally invite you to the Hundred Saber Alliance!
"The Hundred Saber Alliance can be counted among the top hundred sects in the federation and is at its peak. It can even rival with top ten sects and has a long history. It has deep heritage. It's a glorious sect well worthy of its name and reputation!
"If you are willing to sign a contract, I can provide you with resources for three years to study. In these three years, you can freely study at the Grand Desolate War Institution, and the Hundred Saber Alliance will provide you adequate cultivation resources exclusively for your personal use!
