Chapter 86: Ulterior Motive
Ye Guan shifted and moved about like a ghost amidst the crowd of cultivators. Wails echoed one after another as Ye Guan reaped the lives of every cultivator in the crowd.
Ye Guan only chased after one thing—speed. His movements were simple, and each cultivator he killed died in just a single sword move.
A hundred corpses were strewn across the floor in no time. The morale of the remaining cultivators shattered, and they scattered in all directions.
Unfortunately, Ye Guan’s sword was faster than them. He stretched his hand out and sent a sword light flying toward the escaping cultivators. The sword light flickered and jumped about, decapitating ten cultivators in the blink of an eye.
A few cultivators were still alive, and they ran frantically toward Sin City.
Ye Guan had no plans to let them go, and he chased after them with his sword.
Rao Xiu went beyond pallid at the scene that had unfolded in front of him. He was aware that Ye Guan was strong, but he didn’t expect the latter to be strong enough to one-sidedly massacre a crowd of cultivators.
In other words, Ye Guan was ridiculously strong.
Ji Xuan was slightly taken aback as well. He looks gentle and refined, so I didn’t expect that he would be such a ruthless bastard when he fights.
Ji Xuan turned her head. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at somewhere.
Swoosh!
Ji Xuan hurled her dagger.
Shwik!
A faint but grotesque noise echoed from afar. Ji Xuan squinted and saw that her dagger was sticking out of a man’s forehead. The man was holding a bow, and his eyes soon glazed over before he fell off the tree he was standing on.
Swoosh!
Ji Xuan’s figure blurred, and she disappeared far into the distance.
…
Ten cultivators were frantically running toward the city gates of Sin City. The cultivators were ashen with fear, and their eyes quivered violently. A trail of corpses followed behind them.
Swoosh!
A sword light flew and caught up to them.
Slice!
The heads of two cultivators flew into the air.
The remaining eight cultivators squeezed as much strength as they could from their legs to run even faster.
Swoosh!
A sword light swept past them.
Slice!
A cultivator was decapitated, and his corpse crashed to the floor.
Meanwhile, the remaining seven cultivators were relieved upon realizing that they had already entered the city.
Swoosh!
A sword light chased after them, but a cold light burst out of the city gates, repelling the sword light.
Boom!
Ye Guan opened his palm, and the sword made out of sword energy returned to his hand. An old man was standing on top of the city walls. The old man stared at Ye Guan and said, “Violence is not allowed in Sin City.”
Ye Guan nodded. “All right.”
He turned around and collected his spoils of war from the corpses on the ground.
The old man was astonished by Ye Guan’s response. Why is he so obedient?
The old man expected the young man to rush into Sin City and murder those whom he had been chasing earlier. Ye Guan had suddenly become a law-abiding individual, catching him off guard.
Ye Guan collected his spoils of war—the storage rings of the corpses before turning around to leave.
The old man called out. “Wait!”
Ye Guan turned to look at him.
“Are you Ye Guan?” asked the old man.
Ye Guan nodded in response. “Yes!”
“Someone has offered thirty million gold spiritual crystals for your head!”
“Yes, I know.” Ye Guan nodded.
The old man was about to speak, but a voice echoed throughout the city. “The reward has changed! A hundred million! Ye Guan’s head is now worth a hundred million gold spiritual crystals!”
A hundred million gold spiritual crystals!
The eyes of a few powerhouses on the city walls went ablaze with desire.
The old man frowned. A hundred million…
Ye Guan chuckled and remarked, “I had no idea that I’m that valuable!”
He swept his gaze across the powerhouses cultivators on the city walls.
“Is there anyone here who wants my head? If no one is daring enough to step up, I’m leaving!” he shouted.
“I’ll do it!” a young man exclaimed and charged at Ye Guan.
Swoosh!
A ray of sword light flew toward him.
Royal Sword Art!
Shwik!
The young man’s head burst open in mid-air. It happened so fast that the young man’s headless corpse was still running toward Ye Guan, seemingly unaware that it had died.
The corpse eventually fell to the ground with a dull thud.
Ye Guan bent over to pick up the young man’s storage ring.
“Thank you for your patronage,” he said.
The faces of the powerhouses on the city walls turned ugly.
An instant kill! Ye Guan had just instantly killed a Space Annihilation Realm cultivator! How did he do it?
The scene that had unfolded was so intimidating that some powerhouses gave up on chasing after Ye Guan. The reward was tempting, but their lives were far more important than money.
Ye Guan looked up at the powerhouses on the city walls and asked, “Anyone else?”
A deafening silence blanketed Sin City.
Ye Guan turned around to leave.
“Cough!” Ye Guan suddenly coughed violently. He hurriedly covered his mouth with his hand, but he failed to stop his blood from seeping out of his fingers.
He’s injured?
The powerhouses on the city walls were dumbfounded.
“Fuck this!” a large-framed man shouted before jumping off the city walls. He gripped his broadsword tightly and glared at Ye Guan. “We should work together to kill him and share the reward once he’s dead!”
The cultivators were moved by his suggestion, but none of them made a move.
The large-framed man was stunned to see everyone’s inaction. He growled and shouted, “Fortune favors the brave and punishes the timid! Why are you afraid of an injured man? Come down here and kill him with me!”
The cultivators still didn’t make a move.
A man holding a folding fan chuckled and suggested, “Geng Dahan, why don’t you exchange a few moves with him to see if he can still fight? If he can still fight, we’ll come down and help you kill him.”
The cultivators nodded in agreement.
Geng Dahan’s face turned extremely ugly. He glared at the man holding a folding fan and bellowed, “Zhang Huahua! Do I look like an idiot to you?”
Zhang Huahua chuckled and replied, “Yes, you are! You’re an idiot!”
Geng Dahan was so angry that his veins bulged all over him, making him look like he was about to explode.
Zhang Huahua chuckled once more and added, “Big Idiot Geng, you shouldn’t get mad at me! I’m trying to save you here. Young Lord Ye has already killed a hundred cultivators by himself, and each and every one of them had a higher cultivation base than him or at least in the same realm as him.
”What do you think that means? It means that not only is he a powerful cultivator in his own right, but his backer is definitely powerful as well!”
Zhang Huahua glanced at Ye Guan before saying, “Do you really think that we can afford to offend his backer when they were capable of raising such a monstrous talent?”
Geng Dahan went silent. He carefully pondered over Zhang Huahua’s words.
“I suggest you practice using your brain as well, not just your lousy sword techniques,” Zhang Huahua added.
Geng Dahan wordlessly glared at Zhang Huahua before turning to look at Ye Guan.
Ye Guan calmly asked, “So what is it? Do you want to fight me?”
“No… I don’t want to fight you.” Geng Dahan shook his head.
“All right, but you have to leave your storage ring behind!” said Ye Guan.
Geng Dahan was furious, but his fury was immediately assuaged upon seeing the sword in Ye Guan’s hand.
Fuck! Was he just pretending that he was injured to lure us out of the city?
Geng Dahan couldn’t help but glance at the city gates.
Ye Guan saw that and said, “You can go ahead and try if you want to know if you’re faster than my sword.”
Geng Dahan didn’t know what to say.
“Just hurry up and hand over your storage ring to him!” Zhang Huahua shouted, “It’s better to lose a fortune than to lose your life!”
Geng Dahan glared at Ye Guan for a few seconds before opening his palm.
His storage ring flew over to Ye Guan.
Ye Guan examined the storage ring and saw that it contained only about five hundred thousand gold spiritual crystals. He frowned, looking a bit unhappy as he asked, “Why are you so poor?”
Geng Dahan’s face twitched, but he didn’t say anything in response.
He turned around and walked into the city.
He was furious. He initially thought that he could get everyone on the city walls to attack Ye Guan with him, so he was truly caught off guard upon realizing that he was alone. I’m such a dumbass…
Meanwhile, Zhang Huahua turned to look at Ye Guan and chuckled before saying, “Young Lord Ye, I heard that two Guanxuan Academy students had recently died outside. Did you kill them?”
Zhang Huahua’s malicious words echoed loudly throughout the city.
Ye Guan made a sidelong glance at Zhang Huahua before sending over Geng Dahan’s storage ring to the latter.
Zhang Huahua was taken aback, and so was everyone on the city walls.
“Take it, Brother Zhang. You deserve it!” said Ye Guan before leaving. The cultivators thought that Ye Guan was injured, but it seemed that he wasn’t actually injured because he disappeared into the horizon in just a blink of an eye.
However, the cultivators didn’t find such detail important anymore. Their hostile gazes turned to Zhang Huahua. Zhang Huahua was flustered, and he yelled, “Damn it, you bastard! Come back here and clear up this misunderstanding!”
Zhang Huahua didn’t sound convincing at all, and the cultivators’ eyes shone murderously as they stared at the former. Damn it, so you have conspired with him to put on such a show!
Zhang Huahua’s expression turned ugly. He couldn’t stay here any longer, so he immediately jumped off the city walls and disappeared into the distance.
…
Ye Guan entered a dense forest, and Rao Xiu appeared right in front of him.
Rao Xiu was holding a pile of storage rings.
While Ye Guan was busy killing those cultivators earlier, Rao Xiu was busy picking up their storage rings. He initially wanted to hide a few storage rings from Ye Guan, but he ended up changing his mind.
He believed that one could be excessively ambitious but not excessively greedy.
The storage rings also didn’t even belong to him.
Ye Guan accepted the storage rings and examined them. He discovered a total of around thirty million gold spiritual crystals in them. He divided the spoils and handed over a storage ring to Rao Xiu.
The storage ring had three million gold spiritual crystals.
Rao Xiu hesitated.
“It’s yours!” said Ye Guan.
Rao Xiu stared at Ye Guan for quite a while until he was sure that Ye Guan wasn’t planning on killing him to take everything for himself. Reassured, Rao Xiu let out a sigh and accepted the storage ring before saying, “Many thanks, Young Lord Ye!”
“You may leave,” Ye Guan said.
Rao Xiu nodded and said, “Young Lord Ye, I’m staying in a broken temple somewhere on the southern outskirts of Sin City.
”I have a band of brothers with me. They’re not particularly strong, but they know the ins and outs of the city. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to let us know.”
Ye Guan pondered over it and said, “Go to the Immortal Treasures Pavilion and look for Manager Qin Feng. Tell him to investigate the mastermind behind the kill order on my head.”
Ye Guan had decided to make such a decision because he was aware that he would eventually have to ask for the Immortal Treasures Pavilion’s help if he wanted to know the mastermind behind the kill order.
Staying still and doing nothing had never been his style as well.
Rao Xiu nodded and said, “Understood!”
Then, he cupped his fists and left.
Ye Guan closed his eyes, and his brows knitted.
Ji Xuan was still missing. Is she not here? Wait, is there someone else—
Swoosh!
A figure abruptly appeared in front of Ye Guan, and they slashed out with their dagger.
A cold beam of light rushed toward Ye Guan’s throat.
Swoosh!
A ray of light flew toward the figure from somewhere.
Shwik!
The cold beam of light stopped just an inch away from Ye Guan’s throat.
Ye Guan saw a throwing dagger sticking out of the figure’s nape.
Swoosh!
Ji Xuan finally appeared in front of Ye Guan. She chuckled and said, “This guy’s name is Ghost, and he’s a renowned assassin in Sin City. I noticed him lurking around here, waiting for your return.”
Ye Guan opened his palm, and a storage ring flew into Ji Xuan’s hands.
The storage ring contained about fourteen million gold spiritual crystals!
“Is this for me?” Ji Xuan asked.
Ye Guan nodded.
Ji Xuan chortled and said, “I feel a bit guilty accepting this. I didn’t really help you, so I don’t think I deserve so much money, but I guess let’s just say that this is an unexpected boon!”
Ji Xuan hurriedly put the storage ring away.
“Lady Ji,” said Ye Guan, ”I would like to ask you a favor.”
“What is it?” Ji Xuan asked.
Ye Guan explained, “I’m confident that the mastermind behind the kill order is the Ancient Heavenly Dragon Clan rather than the An Clan.
”Once I’ve confirmed my suspicions with the help of the Immortal Treasures Pavilion, I’ll charge into Sin City. I’ll definitely suffer if I were to go in there by myself, so I want you to come with me. Is it okay?”
Ji Xuan's smile abruptly vanished, and the storage ring in her hand suddenly turned scorching hot. Damn it, so this is what he wanted all along? He actually dared to trick me!
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l