Chapter 2160: Chapter 2160 Soul-Crushing Tactic
Xu Mulin subtly probed Ye Liuyun until late into the night before he let him go.
Ye Liuyun continued to answer every question with an unassailable response.
But this further increased Xu Mulin’s suspicions. Ye Liuyun had no problem answering the number of martial practitioners and the amount of food storage in the City Lord’s Manor. This was something that a typical City Lord could not accomplish.
"If Zhao Rongde had such capability, he should have been more than a City Lord by now!" Deep down, Xu Mulin had his doubts.
Once he let Ye Liuyun go, he reached out to those who knew Zhao Rongde personally to get more details about Zhao Rongde.
After more inquiry, Xu Mulin discovered that the Zhao Rongde they described him was not at all the person he met.
The real Zhao Rongde was blunt in his speech and slick in behaviour. However, Ye Liuyun was careful with his words and modest. His mannerisms were not of a typical City Lords who gained their position through lobbying and bribes.
After Ye Liuyun returned, he had a feeling he didn’t grasp Zhao Rongde’s personality well. He had an increasing premonition that his disguise might already be exposed.
Suddenly, he noticed a martial practitioner’s Divine Sense exploring his residence.
"Crush!"
Ye Liuyun instantly launched a secret Divine Sense attack tactic he learnt from the Prince of God.
It was the Soul-crushing Tactic. It mainly attacked using Divine Sense wave to disrupt and fluctuate the opponent’s Divine Soul. Once used correctly, one could annihilate the opponent’s Divine Soul directly.
Ye Liuyun had mastered this technique in a matter of months.
Whenever he encountered a soul probing, he would launch the Soul-crushing Tactic instantly.
However, he regretted the moment he launched the attack.
"It could be a tactic only used by the Soul King! If the expert discovered this, they might think that I killed the Soul King and stole the treasures from Deliverance Hill."
Just then, in Xu Mulin’s chamber, a martial practitioner shrieked out in pain, clenching his jaw and tumbling to the floor. He appeared to have been struck by the Divine Soul attack.
"How are you doing?" Xu Mulin immediately inquired.
"He can attack my Divine Soul with Divine Sense. This is an attack only known by the Soul King!"
The ninth-level martial practitioner was very experienced and could identify Ye Liuyun’s technique.
"Well, that’s progress," Xu Mulin replied, grinning his trademark smile. "Get back and recuperate as soon as you can. To ensure everyone’s safety, inform them not to dispatch their Divine Sense to investigate this area."
"Yes.” The martial practitioner responded before he retreated and conveyed the instruction.
Xu Mulin had called upon this martial practitioner to gauge the strength of Ye Liuyun’s soul power. It unexpectedly lured out the Soul King’s secret technique.
"Who is this man? What is his relationship with the Soul King? Where is the Soul King now?" Xu Mulin started pondering.
The next morning, Xu Mulin along with two martial practitioners, left the City Lord’s Manor to seek out soul cultivators for more information.
At this point, several soul cultivators under Ye Liuyun’s command had returned to the city.
Therefore, Ye Liuyun didn’t need to make any special arrangements, these individuals could monitor Xu Mulin’s whereabouts with their Divine Sense.
Xu Mulin gathered intel for quite a while, but the situation was basically consistent with what Ye Liuyun had said.
The reason for the disappearance of the Divine Soul pressure from the Deliverance Hill was subject to all sorts of speculations. None of them were conclusive.
Some even suspected that Deliverance Hill was merely taking a break. Some believed the Deliverance Hill had deliberately receded its divine soul pressure to lure more martial practitioners into investigation and then eradicated them by surprise on the mountain.
However, these speculations were only heard from Soul Cultivators with relatively lower levels. Xu Mulin tried to gather more information from a few powerful Soul Cultivators.
However, most of the soul cultivators here with strong divine soul power were already Ye Liuyun’s men. None of them were interested in entertaining his questioning.
Xu Mulin wanted to confront them but was worried about their overwhelming Divine soul and thus hesitated.
Ye Liuyun dared not allow them to act out recklessly. It would raise the Zhongxing Dynasty’s attention to dispatch experts via the Conveyor Formation. Then he’d be under suspicion that was hard to dispel.
"When can everyone come back?" Ye Liuyun urged Meng Changjun again.
"Everyone is on their way back, in about three more days!" Meng Changjun replied.
"I don’t know if this old guy will give me that much time!" Ye Liuyun was worried.
Ye Liuyun was approached by Xu Mullin in the afternoon of that day. "Mister Zhao, I’ve seen some expert soul cultivators in the city," He said. "I intend to ask them some questions. Can you ask them on my behalf?"
Feigning difficulty, Ye Liuyun replied to Xu Mulin, "These soul cultivators are experts with high Divine Soul power. I don’t dare to provoke them on a normal basis. I could have upset them and they start causing trouble in the city, it would then be hard to clean up the mess!"
But there ought to be outcomes from the issue that the Prince of God intends to investigate. We can’t let the matter get stuck here! The Prince of God would blame it on you unless you help out. And the punishment would be too heavy for you to bear." Xu Mulin began to intimidate Ye Liuyun.
"Hmm..." Ye Liuyun pretended to hesitate.
I’ll figure something out and discuss it with them. In the meantime, you should rest while waiting for my news!" Ye Liuyun could only do his best to delay it.
"I shall wait in the meantime Please notify me right away as soon as you have scheduled a meeting with them. I’d like to ask them personally."
"The Prince of God is rather impatient for the news though. I hope you can expedite this! I don’t wish for the Prince of God to feel dissatisfied. It might result in additional manpower being dispatched by him. That would be embarrassing for all of us!" Xu Mulin continued to pressure Ye Liuyun.
"Alright, I’ll arrange it immediately!" Ye Liuyun could only agree for now.
"This old geezer is indeed difficult to deal with!"
Upon their split, Ye Liuyun began to contemplate a plan.
If the situation drags on, Xu Mulin wouldn’t approve of it.
At this moment, Ye Liuyun could only rely on the soul cultivators under him for help.
Ye Liuyun immediately summoned a guard and urged him to pretend to bring some resources to these martial practitioners in an effort to persuade each of them individually.
Throughout the whole process, it was Ye Liuyun who controlled everyone’s actions. Martial Practitioners who agreed and disapproved, were already pre-planned by Ye Liuyun.
Moreover, to buy as much time as he could, the meeting times between the guards and the martial practitioners were set for the next day.
By the time dinner was almost served, the guard returned and reported the situation to Ye Liuyun.
Ye Liuyun swiftly informed Xu Mulin, "I have arranged meetings with ten martial practitioners for tomorrow!"
Knowing that Ye Liuyun was attempting to postpone, Xu Mulin was mentally prepared and pleased with the result. He instantly agreed to the proposal and even pretended to praise Ye Liuyun.
At this moment, a soul cultivator rushing back suddenly sent a message to Ye Liuyun. The ten martial practitioners who had split from Xu Mulin earlier were heading back to Soulspire City.
Because they were going in the same direction, the martial practitioner inquired about the situation from Ye Liuyun’s men.
However, they followed Ye Liuyun’s instructions and shared some information.
"Could it be that this old geezer planned to make a move against me?" Some doubts started to creep into Ye Liuyun’s mind.
"Let’s first deal with them and see how this old geezer reacts!" Without wasting any time, Ye Liuyun resolved to take action against them.
