When Wang Lu brandished the Sword of Mount Kun, this thick and simple sword exuded the gloomy aura similar to that of the nine levels of hell, which caused the nearby A Xia to shiver.
This was the fury of the sword spirit Autumn Beam. A Xia had simultaneously plotted against cat girl Ling Yan and Liu Li using despicable means. For this, the anger of Autumn Beam, who always had a good impression on Liu Li and sympathy for the cat girl, had long reached the boiling point. At this time, Wang Lu’s cultivation base was already at Xudan, and only two seals left untie on the spiritual treasure, which caused it to be able to release an enormous amount of its power. Autumn Beam didn’t even need to take ethereal form; her anger alone had already made A Xia shiver in fear.
Theoretically, if a spiritual treasure got enough magical power support, the spirit of the spiritual treasure with sufficient enough grade could fight alone. Moreover, its strength would not be low. Therefore, when he saw the eagerness of Wang Lu’s Sword of Mount Kun, the panic in A Xia’s heart became even more severe.
Don’t tell me this guy wants to sacrifice his spiritual treasure to avoid the restraint of the Big Heart Demon Oath? If that’s the case, then as long as he blocks the other elders he could simply let the spiritual treasure Sword of Moun Kun fight with me…
If he were a genuine Tiger King, perhaps he wouldn’t be afraid of the threat from a low-rank spiritual treasure, but he was afraid!
Not to mention that this time he was seriously injured and his body could not move, even if the injury were healed, with his skill, it would be lucky if he could utilize even ten percent of Tiger King’s power. Thus, meeting the fully combative Sword of Mount Kun, he would die for sure.
Thinking to this, A Xia was terrified. His biggest card has failed, thus almost certainly his smugness has come to an end. However, losing face and being forced into difficult position, so much that he might not return alive were two very different things. Fortunately, his nature was cautious, so he definitely had prepared more card prior to this.
Now, it was time to put that ambush with the biggest side effect, which was also his biggest card out in the open.
"Wang Lu, you can’t kill me!"
"Because it will dirty my hand? No problem, I don’t mind being dirty," Wang Lu lightly said. His imposing manner became even more powerful.
Although he knew that he was bounded by the Great Heart Demon Oath, A Xia still felt that at any time, the other side could come at him with the sword and directly kill him in the most brutal way possible that he wouldn’t even have his body left.
Therefore, he hurriedly said, "There are my people in the Yue Family of Celestial Water Lake!"
As soon as he took out this card, unexpectedly, Wang Lu uttered a slight cry, and his momentum dissipated a little. "Celestial Water Lake?"
Seeing that the card actually worked, A Xia suddenly felt the joy of someone who had just escaped from death. However, things haven’t really settled down. Wang Lu at any time, could disregard everything and...Therefore, A Xia dared not treat this lightly. His brain quickly organized the wording as such that they would achieve the best result.
"You came to the Cloud Region for experiential learning by assuming the identity of a cultivator from Yue Family of Celestial Water Lake… because you have a Junior Sister in the Spirit Sword Sect who came from the Yue Family of Celestial Water Lake, am I right?"
Wang Lu nodded his head. "Correct. Taking advantage of her family status, Liu Li and I assume its status… Therefore, when you’re aware of this, you sent someone to the Celestial Water Lake? Hmm, though Yue Family do have some reputation, for two generations, except for Yue Xinyao, there are no other prominent characters. Even the head of the family just barely reached the high-level Jindan Stage. Moreover, though the cultivation base is there, they do not excel at fighting. Therefore, as a famous family, their strength was not at all strong. If your shameless Beast Master School wants to coerce Yue Family through force, they certainly couldn’t resist. So, do you want to threaten me with that?"
A Xia said, "I do not dare to say it’s a threat, but I do hope that you must consider it clearly. Don’t make this a lose-lose situation."
Wang Lu sneered. "Lose-lose situation? Are you mental? How much does it matter to me even if Yue Family people are dead?"
A Xia earnestly said, "Stop pretending. As far as I know, you’re not that kind of person. Although you gained your reputation by creating a controversy on the gambling table on the two sects competition a few years ago, but there’s no data that shows you to be a cruel and cold-blooded cultivator. On the contrary, most of the information speculated that you have a justifying psychology."
"Hahaha, well said." Wang Lu laughed out loud. "Although in theory, from among Beast Master School people, you’re the sole person responsible if anything happens to the Yue Family, I will not completely turn a blind eye. After all, since I have assumed my Junior Sister’s family identity, it means that once I provoke any opponent, it will implicate her family. But, I would like to ask you, since you’ve paid such a high price to get my information from the intelligence merchant, is there any mention that I’m a fool?"
A Xia was startled, what kind of question is this?
The serious answer to this was...of course not. On the contrary, any information would focus on Wang Lu’s intelligence.
Perhaps, purely on the intelligence level alone, there was no evidence to prove that he was smarter and more calculating than those famous geniuses of Nine Regions, but at least, he was definitely not a fool. And judging from A Xia’s own experience… though A Xia often boasted himself as clever, since he met with Wang Lu, each of their confrontation resulted in A Xia’s total rout! Now that Wang Lu had asked him that, could it be...
"Early on, I have already guessed that some despicable villain would do this kind of hostage as blackmail thing, so I have made a precaution. You think that through evil plots, you will gain victory, but instead, you’re just lowering yourself in the mud," Wang Lu said. Clearly, his body type was not as big as Tiger King, yet his look was filled with condescending and disdain. "You really are a sad creature."
"You! You’re trying to fool me aren’t you!?" A Xia’s mind became a hot mess, and his emotion suddenly went out of control. "Do you think I’m an idiot? You said you’ve already guessed it from the start and made the necessary precaution? If you really have such foresight, how come you did not suspect that the cat girl Ling Yan was sent by me to infiltrate your group? You even accepted her under your command in clear conscience, yet, in the end, she ended up seriously injuring your Junior Sister!"
Hearing A Xia’s roar, Wang Lu froze his smile, and his eyebrows gradually furrowed.
Those words hit the nail right on the head. It was his own mistake in judgment that let Liu Li suffer this ordeal. Although it did not end up in the worst possible result, that was not due to Wang Lu’s credit. If it were not for Liu Li’s years of accumulated poison resistance, the situation now would be very troubling. Despite being scolded in the face by a wretched looking waste was somewhat a bit out of fashion, it was indeed an impressive lesson.
Seeing that Wang Lu had remained silent, A Xia actually thought his words were right; he began to laugh out loud. "Sure enough, I guessed it right! You’re just bluffing!"
Actually, if this was in a normal setting, though A Xia has all kinds of flaws, it was not easy for him to be impulsive. It was just that, just now, after he had been punched trice by Wang Lu’s burning heart fist, his dao heart that kept his rationality had taken a damage, which alighted his prairie of heart afire, causing him to no longer able to control his emotion.
As he smiled, he fished out a crystal mirror. "I had long ago let Chi Hou brought spirit beasts to the Celestial Water Lake. Though he himself was seriously injured, since he brought with him my command token, he could command a fully transformed spirit beast once. That spirit beast cultivation base is infinitely close to Yuanying Stage. Alone, it could bring down the entire more than a hundred people of Yue Family! One day ago, I got a message from Chi Hou, he had used the command token and got the affirmation from the spirit beast. Now, he probably already has full control of the entire Yue Family. Whether they will live or die, that’s entirely up to you!"
With that, he barely managed to deliver a glimmer of magical power to the mirror, activating it. Before long, light and shadow were reflected out from the mirror.
This was a magical tool used by Chi Hou and him to communicate. Now, as long as Wang Lu saw that the scene on the other side of the mirror was fully in his control, A Xia believed that Wang Lu would make a rational choice… Moreover, if things went smooth, perhaps not only he could maintain his life, he could even bargain that immortal beast spirit moon.
Hehehe, this is something that the real Tiger King couldn’t do, yet, in my hands, I could possibly make a comeback...This should be able to show that I am better than the real one, right?
While thinking about it, time passed bit by bit. A moment later, A Xia found out that although there were shadows on the crystal mirror in his hand, the image has actually been distorted into a blur, causing him to not be able to see the real situation. This was because the magical power put on the two sides of the mirror was not synchronized. This was not that strange actually—since, at this time, the magical power that he sent out came from Tiger King, naturally, it was quite different than when he was in his original body.
However, as long as Chi Hou adjusted from the other side, the two sides would be able to synch. He...
"Chi Hou, what are you doing? Quickly adjust the magical power," A Xia angrily roared. He was severely injured, thus he had no energy to adjust his magical power.
After waiting for a while, the light in the mirror was still unstable. A Xia suddenly felt that haze has shrouded over his heart… as if something bad happened to a matter that was important to him.
"Actually, I am really not a genius with foolproof plans. All I can do is to carefully make things work. Before I went down the mountain, I thought that my assumed identity might bring trouble to Yue Family. But, it’s impossible to anticipate what kind of trouble or what kind of opponent I will encounter in advance. It is even more impossible to invest a lot of resources just for the anticipation that something wrong might happen. If I have that many resources, of course I would do it. Therefore, I present the Buddha with borrowed flowers [1]. Taking advantage of the occasion, this time, besides Liu Li and I, the sect also let other disciples go down the mountain to do experiential learning. As it happened, Junior Sister Yue Xinyao also wanted to go home to visit her family. Therefore, I told her that she could take this chance to ask another senior disciple to pay a visit to her family as a guest. Everyone in Yue Family happens to be good in refining tools, so they can use this opportunity to deliver some magical tools and tie some good karma. And the one that came home together with her…"
Wang Lu paused, deliberately creating a cliffhanger before he revealed the answer.
"The one that accompanied her, is our Spirit Sword Sect big sister, Zhu Shiyao."
Zhu Shi...Yao?
A Xia was stunned for a moment, then he remembered that the person whose name Zhu Shiyao was the first Successor Disciple of the Spirit Sword Sect. Legend has it that her strength was far above the peerless talent like Wang Lu and Liu Li. However, no matter how powerful she was, her cultivation base was at most at low-level Xudan. There was no chance that she could face off against spirit beast close to Yuanying Stage in power.
That spirit beast was one of his most proud of works in the Southern Heaven Region. Compared to cat girl Ling Yan, it was several times more powerful that it was not even a joke. The only hateful thing was that, due to some coincidences, the mark on the spirit beast was not particularly stable. Therefore, he could only seek its help occasionally, asking it for help instead of treating it as a slave like Ling Yan.
Along with it, there were also a large number of low-level spirit beasts that composed of the Ten Thousand Beasts Array. A mere Yue Family of Celestial Water Lake and a Xudan Stage Zhu Shiyao...
While he was thinking, the light from the crystal mirror suddenly changed, which immediately sent A Xia into joy, thinking that idiot Chi Hou finally responded.
He thought that It should be successful. Not only Yue Family, but also Yue Xinyao who was paying a visit home, as well as that Zhu Shiyao, all should have been in his control. This was nothing short of brilliant victories for him, as long...
While his heart was thumping wildly with excitement, the light and shadow on the mirror finally condensed into a clear picture.
Chi Hou’s face appeared on the mirror. However, this time, his face was full of blood. He had actually sustained serious injuries. His voice was also weak and powerless.
"We failed… that person, is so strong. You have never told me that there will be such a person. With just one sword strike, that fully transformed spirit beast died instantly. Even its primordial spirit could not escape, now we’re already…"
Crash!
Chi Hou’s voice abruptly stopped. A Xia had inadvertently crushed the mirror.
His body uncontrollably shook, indicating the infinite despair and panic within his heart. This time, he was truly finished.
…
[1] (i.e., win favor or influence using somebody else’s property)