Stranger Danger

“I’ll live!” Wang Luori grunted before launching into a tirade, “What were you guys doing while I was fighting against that old fucker? I cannot believe so many of you couldn’t take out even one Cheng Nuo. Trash!”

Xu Wushang and the others kept quiet. Contrary to Wang Luori’s words, there was nothing they could do while he was duking it out with Zhang Lanjiang. Had he won, they would be all over Cheng Nuo’s corpse already. But since he lost, they could only withdraw with their tails tucked between their legs. Such was the way of this world.

Of course, no one was stupid enough to voice their opinion out loud. It would be no different from committing suicide.

Wang Luori was the tyrant of Sunset Hill. Rarely anyone dared to challenge his authority, not to mention that the man was furious right now. Voicing a retort now would surely earn them a swift and undignified death.

“Trash. Trash!”

Wang Luori grew even more furious when no one spoke up. He pushed Xu Wushang away and yelled, “Why are you still standing here? Go find my Eastern Purple Cloud Stele already! Both halves! If anything happens to my Strange Artifact because you were slacking, I swear I’ll rip you all to shreds!”

“As you command, master.”

“At once!”

The group received their orders and left immediately. Only a handful of disciples stayed behind to guard Wang Luori.

“Dammit! Dammit! Zhang Lanjiang and that shitty book, how dare you destroy my Eastern Purple Cloud Stele and humiliate me! Just you wait. When my Strange Artifact is repaired, and I have become a Spirit Master after retaking the ‘Emperor Fuxi Visualization Method’ from Ye Qing, I will come back and destroy you all!”

“Graaaaaaaaah!” Wang Luori ended his rant with an angry roar and a punch against a giant rock standing in front of him. Despite his weakened state, it shattered into smithereens easily.

At this point, the Hill Lord’s hatred for Zhang Lanjiang had exceeded even his hatred for Cheng Nuo, the man who killed his son.

He could always sow more sons in the future, but if he lost the Eastern Purple Cloud Stele, then that was it. Sunset Hill would be in grave danger, and he would lose the one item that allowed him to stand toe-to-toe with the other two sects!

Therefore, he must retrieve the Eastern Purple Cloud Stele no matter what. Although that shitty book had snapped it in half, it might still be possible to repair it. Only then could he take revenge against White Horse Academy.

Suddenly, Wang Luori saw a man walking toward them. It was an outer steward who went away to search for the Eatern Purple Cloud Stele earlier.

“Why are you back, Tang Shong? Did you find the Eastern Purple Cloud Stele already?” Wang Luori asked. However, the man didn’t respond to his call.

“Are you deaf or mute? I’m asking you a question!” Wang Luori’s tone grew a little impatient. However, the man still didn’t respond and continued to close the distance between them.

“Tang Shong, you—” Wang Luori was about to fly into a rage when suddenly, Tang Shong rushed forward and landed a palm strike squarely on his chest.

Tan Shong was an outer steward of Sunset Hill, so he was pretty strong—a Half-Step Spirit Purifier to be exact. The steward hadn’t held back, and Wang Luori was both severely injured and mentally unguarded. As a result, the sudden attack shattered his bones and sent him flying into a tree.

“Pwack! What the hell do you think you’re doing, Tan Shong? Have you gone mad?” Wang Luori exclaimed in shock and confusion while spitting blood. Tan Shong was among the last people he thought would attack him.

“No… wait… what happened to you, Tan Shong?”

It was at this moment Wang Luori noticed something amidst. The outer steward’s expression was blank and wooden almost as if he was a puppet.

“You lot, what are you waiting for? Come protect me already!”

His disciples turned around to face him, but their expressions were just as wooden as Tan Shong’s. As if that wasn’t bad enough, over twenty warriors stepped out from the nearby forest. Their clothes, weapons, and cultivation levels all differed greatly. They were clearly independent warriors. The one commonality they shared was the wooden expression on their faces.

The next moment, they all pounced toward Wang Luori.

“An assassination attempt?!”

Wang Luori frowned deeply as he met the group head on. When two swordsmen got close, he raised his fists and punched their swords hard. The blades exploded into a shower of deadly projectiles and killed a handful of attackers. Then, he took a few steps forward—every time he took a step, it was like an elephant was stomping the ground—and shook the ground hard enough to knock the warriors off balance. The next moment, they burst into flames and burned down to ashes without resistance.

Wang Luori walked across the sea of flames. His movement looked slow and leisurely, but it took him only a second to appear in front of Tang Shong. He grabbed the outward steward with his bare hand and crushed it like a watermelon, sending red gore and white brain matter everywhere.

“Do you really think you can kill me with a bunch of mindless puppets?” Wang Luori taunted his unseen attacker. The warrior group looked menacing, but they were mindless. They were probably easier to kill than even a bunch of crazed animals.

“Show yourself, friend. Surely you’re man enough to fight me face to face?” Wang Luori continued to provoke his enemy in a scornful voice.

“Sigh. I just can’t manipulate these dolls as well as that old timer. I guess I’m just not talented in this department,” complained an annoyed, feminine voice. “Oh well! I should just stick to my earth dolls!”

Her voice was coming from the forest, but Wang Luori was unable to pinpoint her location because it was coming from everywhere at once. The next moment, the soil and stone around Wang Luori flowed like water and converged into many earth dolls.

The earth dolls had a humanoid body and face. They looked so lifelike they could probably be mistaken for a human being in the dark. Not only that, they were crying with clear excitement and delight,

“Woohoo! Another day, another murder!”

“Get him, brothers!”

It was almost as if they were sentient. They split up into several groups and surrounded Wang Luori from all sides.

“Earth dolls?”

Wang Luori frowned deeply. His senses were telling that each and every one of these earth dolls was as strong as a late-stage Astral Refiner. They were just as intelligent as a human being as well.

Before Wang Luori could decide on a course of action, the three earth dolls at the forefront raised their earth swords and attacked him from three positions: Heaven, Earth, and Human. They were all using a profound sword technique!

“The Three Powers Sword…”

The Three Powers Sword was a third-rate sword art that many people in the jianghu knew. It was pretty weak when executed by a single person, but it was a different story if three people came together to form the Three Powers Formation.

Wang Luori didn’t dare to treat it lightly. Exploiting his greater cultivation, he managed to reach the earth dolls first and punch one of the earth dolls into oblivion before the Three Powers Formation could fully take form. Then, like a dragon flicking its tail, he swung his arm horizontally and unleashed a fiery dragon that consumed the other two dolls.

Unfortunately, another three dolls crawled out of the ground before he could even sigh in relief. They yelled, “We got a tough customer, brothers! Let’s get him together!”

The earth dolls rushed Wang Luori at once, but they weren’t going after him like an unorganized group. Not even close. Three dolls formed the Three Powers, four dolls emulated the Four Symbols, five people conjured the Five Elements, eight dolls embodied the Eight Trigrams, and nine dolls acted like one single entity.

If Wang Luori was at his full strength, he could’ve crushed these dolls in a single punch. However, he was seriously injured, and these earth dolls cooperated perfectly with one another and possessed seemingly endless numbers. Over time, he accumulated more and more injuries and was actually pushed into a corner.

Not all Sunset Hill disciples were mind-controlled by the unseen attacker, and not all of them had walked so far away that they couldn’t hear the commotion. They immediately rushed back to the Hill Lord’s rescue, but more earth dolls emerged from the ground and kept them pinned.

It wasn’t long before everyone was fighting to save themselves, and Wang Luori was the most desperate of them all.

The Hill Lord continued to weaken as he accrued more and more injuries. Then—

Pssh!

Wang Luori was exhausted both physically and mentally after all the battles he had fought today. As a result, a pair of dolls were able to exploit a slip in his concentration and stab him in the chest.

Behind him, a pair of swords and sabers were swinging toward his back as well. They were a perfect blend of real, unreal, straightforward and feint like yin and yang. A patch of chaos abruptly surged out into the open, and it seemed potent enough to return all things to zero.

Wang Luori let out a furious growl when he sensed the sudden crisis. He detonated his remaining astral qi and was able to destroy all the earth dolls in a wash of golden flames, but the loss of power only put him in direr straits.

A white-faced Wang Luori staggered on his feet when he finally recognized his attacker, “You… You’re the Earth Puppeteer of Jester Tower [1]?!”

“Huh! I must be more famous than I thought if the great Hill Lord of Sunset Hill would recognize me! A pleasure to make your acquaintance!” the feminine voice replied.

“Of course I have heard of you. There are few people at my level who don\'t know about Jester Tower.” Wang Luori said slowly, “However, I don’t remember offending you or Jester Tower in any way. Why are you attacking me?”

The Earth Puppeteer replied, “Since you know our name, you should know exactly what kind of organization we are. We’ll work for anyone who pays the right price. To put it simply, someone hired us to kill you.”

“And who might your employer be, pray tell?” Hatred flickered within Wang Luori’s eyes.

It was said that Jester Tower loved nothing more than to steal fate and toy lives. They were one of the most mysterious yet infamous killer organizations in the jianghu.

They were mysterious because the location of their headquarters, their organizational structure, their numbers, their strength and more were completely unknown. They were infamous because they had killed Grandmasters, Truemen, and imperial personnel, and even annihilated famous sects in the past. To say that their hands were caked in blood would be an understatement. They continued to exist in this world even after several famous sects had come together to squash them.

The Earth Puppeteer was one of the more famous killers of Jester Tower as of late. Famed for their ability to control earth dolls, they once commanded hundreds of earth dolls and ground down the veteran Spirit Master and castellan of the Twelve Castles of the Owls of Feng Yang, Zuo Tianying the “Ghost Owl”. It was this feat that caused their name to be whispered throughout the jianghu.

Strangely, the Earth Puppeteer’s true name, background, appearance, cultivation level and more were a complete mystery. It was probably because everyone who knew their personal information was dead.

Wang Luori didn’t think he deserved such a famous killer. The timing of the attack was practically perfect as well.

Who in the world hates me so much that they would hire the Earth Puppeteer of all things to kill me?

He might be an arrogant man who condescended on everyone and everything, he wasn’t stupid. He knew who he could abuse, and who to avoid. He would’ve died a long time ago if he didn’t know at least this much.

Unfortunately, he was unable to figure out the answer.

His impulse told him that it was Ye Qing or the Pacification Bureau, but his reason said otherwise. If the Pacification Bureau wanted him dead, they would have marched to his hill in person. It was beneath them to hire a killer organization to kill him.

Ye Qing was even more out of the question. It was unthinkable that the young man was rich enough to hire the Earth Puppeteer. If he was, he wouldn’t need to come to the Pacification Bureau for protection.

So who was it?

1. The original raw is “Fate Toying” or something like that. ☜