Devouring The Heavens

“What’s going on? Why are they all dead?” Biyue quickly went and checked the bodies. She realized what had happened after she carefully examined the aftermath of the fight.

”He has crossbows of explosion. But king fighters should be able to defend themselves from the crossbows! They shouldn’t die like that!”

Behind Biyue, Kuiya had also arrived on the scene with another middle aged man. The man was much more powerful than a king fighter. He was clearly a grandmaster!

“Sister Biyue, all the men that I hired were killed!” Kuiya was shocked. If he was the target of all these assassins, he would have been killed many times over. However, the powerful group of assassins was wiped out.

Biyue looked at the middle aged man, “Grandmaster Kuixue!”

“I’ve heard about what happened from Kuiya. If Lady Biyue wants to kill Xuanyuan, I can help, but there is a condition, Master Fung Lie cannot know of my involvement. I can’t afford to make an enemy of him while I am already fighting Huxuan.” Kuixue was a formidable man. He waved his hand and a surge of power pulled two figures out from the shadows. They were Xiaotian and Xiang Tianku.

“Brother Xiao, brother Xiang! Why are you eavesdropping here?” Biyue asked with a smile on her lips.

There was a clear difference in power between a grandmaster and a king realm fighter. Xiaotian and Xiang Tianku couldn’t give even the slightest resistance against Grandmaster Kuixue.

“You were the ones who hired the other two assassination teams, correct? We’re all in the same boat, it’s not wise to waste time on falsehoods here.” Kuixue said straightforwardly. He said slowly, “Do not try to deceive me. Xuanyuan insulted my son, I will be sure to kill him. If this is also your intention, then we are on the same side and should work together. What do you think?”

Xiang Tianku felt the pressure in the air. Grandmaster Kuixue was known for being unpredictable, but he did have a point, there was no use in pretending.

“Grandmaster Kuixue is right. I was the one who hired two of the king fighters to kill Xuanyuan, since I deemed it inappropriate of Xuanyuan attempting to tarnish brother Kuiya’s reputation. I planned to send him on his way.” Xiang Tianku explained. His words sounded fake, but his boot licking stroked Kuixue’s pride. He was also implicating Xiaotian by only taking responsibility for sending half of the assassins.

“Grandmaster Kuixue has misunderstood. I was only passing by, I was actually on my way to the Sect. I didn’t see anything, nor hear anything. I will leave you all to your business. Farewell.” Xiaotian only shrugged off the implication of him being involved in this. He gestured politely and smiled before he turned away to leave. Kuixue wanted to stop him but he was weary of forcing the matter. Not only was Xiaotian one of the most important inner disciples, he also had an extremely powerful backer.

Grandmaster Kuixue only nodded and did not pursue the matter. Xiaotian smiled at the rest as he left saying, “Brothers, sister, please excuse me.”

Xiang Tianku was annoyed. He was shocked after being pulled out by Kuixue and now he didn’t even have the support of Xiaotian.

“All of you should go back to the sect, Xuanyuan is very cunning. You can no longer stop him from joining the sect. Make sure to keep an eye on him after he arrives. When he next steps outside of the sect, there’ll be another opportunity to kill him.” Kuixue flew away after he said his piece. The colour returned to the faces of Xiang Tianku and Biyue who were relieved that they were no longer suppressed by his powerful aura.

Kuiya looked extremely happy now that Grandmaster Kuixue was involved, but he hid it well. He only said “Brother, sister, let’s go.”

They all started heading back towards the Fighting Dragons Sect.

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“Hahaha, so amazing! I was worrying about how I was going to support myself once I was in the Sect, I didn’t think there’d be a group of benefactors waiting to supply me with their equipment and money!” Xuanyuan was happily talking to himself as he headed to the sect.

“Don’t get too excited. Exchange all your merit points into fighting stones, jades and crystals and give them to me. You think it will be easy once you are in the Sect? If you’re not careful, I might be discovered.” Greed interrupted.

“IN YOUR DREAMS! Go and absorb the nine stones inside the ring. Then you will regain your power and we’ll be safe. Don’t be so fussy.” Xuanyuan rolled his eyes.

“What do you know? How many times did I say it? There’re mysterious objects dwelling inside the stones, I might be the one to get absorbed instead, I’m still not powerful enough. I have to regain a portion of my power first. If you have a death wish, why don’t you try using the stones? You think I don’t want to absorb their power? It’s not that simple…”

Greed continued his ranting for another fifteen minutes, which exhausted Xuanyuan.

“Alright, alright. I’ll get you as many fighting stones, jades and crystals as your heart desires. Just please shut up.”

“That’s better.” Greed was satisfied with his victory.

“What a greedy old bugger. I’ve never seen an old bugger as greedy as you…”

“I’m not old!” Greed screamed in protest.

The path through the forest was filled with beasts. Even the weakest of the beasts had the power of a spiritual fighter. It was the correct decision to leave Guxing. With him, they might never make it through the forest. If Guxing was hurt or killed because of him, Xuanyuan would never forgive himself.

Just when Xuanyuan was bantering with Greed, he discovered that there were some traces of fighting Qi on the ground and in the trees around him. He could see that it was the aftermath of a battle and the area was covered in pieces of red scale covered flesh.

“Those are red spirit snakes. Once you go through the forest of snakes, you will finally reach the Sect.” Greed’s voice rang inside Xuanyuan’s head.

“The Sect is indeed one of the three main powers of the East. How many people have died just attempting to make this journey? It’s cruel.” Xuanyuan sighed.

“The way of martial arts is cruel.” Greed said quietly.

Xuanyuan fell into silence as he swiftly entered the forest. Many trees on the path were destroyed, numerous dead snakes could be seen off in the distance. Poisonous smoke was leaking from the bodies of the dead snakes. Xuanyuan quickly swallowed one of the antidotes left by Wu Ming to counteract the effects of the smoke.

He noticed that there were also dead fighters laying on the ground next to a colourful, giant snake. The snake’s corpse was emitting a highly corrosive smoke, corroding the dead bodies of everything around it.

“It’s a five coloured snake. They are extremely poisonous and are as strong as a wild fighter. Those dead guys are wearing uniforms, and are probably guards from some large family, escorting their young master to the sect.” Greed explained.

“Is that allowed? Will the sect take those people as disciples? They relied on the protection of others to make it into the sect.” Xuanyuan couldn’t believe it.

“Of course. It’s also part of their power to influence others to die for you. You think there’d be people willing to sacrifice themselves for a powerless, poor man? The sect knows the power dynamic very well. The sect is like a tree with solid roots and many different branches. In this world, the lives of the weak are worthless.” Greed thought he knew what Xuanyuan was thinking.

But Xuanyuan only grinned and replied, “Well, the dead have no use for riches. Let’s see if they’ve got anything valuable on them.”

Without waiting for a reply, he dashed forward and started to search the dead bodies.