Chapter 2363: Chapter 2363 Terrifying Incident
The martial practitioners defending Hong Kun were instantly overpowered by the clone and his killers the moment they struck.
Hong Kun swiftly gave the command to cover his retreat upon seeing the dire situation.
However, most of his elite experts had already fallen.
Suddenly, the Devil vines erupted from the ground once more, their writhing tendrils encircling Hong Kun and his remaining martial practitioners, ready to devour them.
To their surprise, Hong Kun was clad in a high-quality defensive armour. It was so resilient that not even the thorns of the vines could penetrate it.
In a fit of rage, the vines twisted and coiled about him, whipping him viciously. The enormous plant was too much for Hong Kun, and he was sent whizzing through the sky like a ragdoll. His survival relied solely on his impenetrable armour.
Despite escaping serious harm, Hong Kun was left bewildered after enduring an unrelenting onslaught of blows.
Seizing the moment, the Devil Vine coiled even tighter, its vine eventually found a weak spot on his armour and sank its thorns into his flesh.
As the Devil Vine drained his energy, the vines dragged him underground, vanishing without a trace.
Meanwhile, Ye Liuyun and his clone relentlessly attacked the martial practitioners’ Divine Soul, bending them to their will and turning them into obedient soldiers.
Hong Kun’s forces were utterly demoralised, terrified by the Devil Vine and the Devil Beasts. Many dropped their weapons and surrendered.
However, Ye Liuyun had no mercy to spare. Only Omnipotent Level experts were granted the privilege to surrender.
The rest were made living prey for the Feral Beasts and Devil Beast, honing their predatory instincts.
Once the last of the Omnipotent level experts had been subdued, the clone dispatched assassins to Hong Kun’s estate, ensuring no loose ends remained.
Ye Liuyun assessed his newly gained army, which included more than twenty Omnipotent Level experts. He directed them to hold the perimeter, leaving the remaining martial practitioners to the feral beasts and Devil Beasts, who ripped across the battlefield with unbridled zeal.
Phantom Hand allowed several Vespera Demons to take his place so they could join the fight, while Ye Liuyun and his clone joined the team to defend the women.
To Ye Liuyun, this conflict seemed like a child’s play. Fear had already paralysed the martial practitioners Hong Kun had brought.
They had gone much too long without real combat. Because of Hong Kun’s status, no one dared to confront them most of the time. Therefore, they lacked true fighting skills.
Even as they watched their comrades being torn apart by the Feral beasts, they were too afraid to do anything to stop it.
The rampaging beasts quickly eliminated the five hundred combatants who were disorganised and dispersed, with most of them just planning to flee.
In the meantime, the Demon Vine had drained Hong Kun of every last drop of energy. Ripping the corpse out from the ground, it then presented Ye Liuyun with the Interspatial Ring.
"There’s good stuff inside!" the Demon Vine whispered excitedly.
When Ye Liuyun used his divine sense to scan the ring’s storage, he discovered an unexpected treasure trove. The most eye-catching feature was a transplanted fruit tree bearing a single radiant golden fruit, its glow impossible to ignore.
He gave the fruit a thorough inspection, but it remained a mystery to him. Even though the fruit wasn’t ripe yet, the energy within was incredibly dense and shimmered with a pure gold aura.
He transplanted it into his Spatial World, instructing Yuer to tend to it. His plan was to refine it into advanced energy with the Multipurpose Cauldron once it matured.
But upon seeing it, Ye Ling advised him differently. "You can absorb this fruit directly. The effect will be far stronger than refining it beforehand."
"I sense an explosive potency in this golden energy. Absorbing it raw might multiply its benefits several times over."
"Alright then," Ye Liuyun agreed, deciding to test it once the fruit ripened.
Ye Ling even buried a handful of Spirit Crystals beneath the tree to nourish it.
Ye Liuyun accompanied the Songstress back to their inn in the city, while the clone went back to Stygian after the battlefield was cleaned up.
Two of Wan Weihou’s subordinates had already retreated to a safe distance. They mustered up the courage to visit and inspect the area only after Ye Liuyun and the Songstress had returned to the city.
Unfortunately, all they came across were gouged out bodies, pools of blood, and a battleground pocked with craters. The scene was devoid of any signs of life or weaponry.
They exchanged uneasy glances and realised they had to report the truth to Wan Weihou.
"Were they all killed? Did you witness how it happened?"
Wan Weihou was shocked by the news. He thought it was by pure luck that Ye Liuyun and the Songstress managed to escape Hong Kun’s pursuit.
The fact that they had slaughtered five or six hundred men in return was beyond his comprehension.
He immediately recalled the two men he dispatched and ordered a thorough investigation into Ye Liuyun and the Songstress’s backgrounds. Yet, the investigation report revealed nothing remarkable about them. They were merely two insignificant figures from Lunaris City.
However, the result only deepened his curiosity.
"Since they don’t have a powerful background, then the more we should recruit them."
With that thought in his mind, Wan Weihou sent operatives to live near Ye Liuyun. Their goal this time was not surveillance, but to keep an eye on anybody who came in contact with them.
During Ye Liuyun’s journey back to the inn, earthquakes broke out in Hong Kun’s estate.
The place was in ruins, as if ravaged by a storm. Buildings had collapsed, and bloodstains were everywhere. However, there was not a single body seen.
The assassins had collected all the corpses for the Devil Beasts’ consumption.
The news of the slaughter of Hong Kun’s whole home spread rapidly across Valorcrest. Soon after the news spread that the Songstress had murdered his son, speculation started to swirl over whether Ye Liuyun had any involvement with the crime.
Ye Liuyun and Songstress’s exploits caught the attention of another major power, Mu Yuantang.
Mu Yuantang had been relentlessly pursuing the killer after his daughter’s death.
He spent a lot of Spirit Crystals to learnt that an assassin named "Liuyun" was responsible for his daughter’s death.
But he still couldn’t prove it was Ye Liuyun, no matter how much he paid. The likelihood was just too high.
His suspicions were further heightened when he learnt that his daughter had spent time with a songstress, who claimed to be Ye Liuyun’s younger sister, right before her death. The uncanny resemblance between ’Ye Liuyun’ and the assassin’s name ’Liuyun’ was impossible to ignore.
To his confusion, though, more investigation had shown that Ye Liuyun and the assassin Liuyun were entirely different individuals. Multiple eyewitnesses claimed to have seen both in different locations.
But Mu Yuantang was determined to interrogate Ye Liuyun personally. It had been inconvenient to take direct action due to the Songtress’ participation in a competition, which was the main obstacle.
With Hong Kun’s family massacred, he saw the perfect opportunity to seize Ye Liuyun and the Songstress for questioning.
Then he sent a group of troops and charged into the inn where Ye Liuyun was staying without hesitation. They stormed in to take him and the Songstress into custody, citing Hong Kun’s household slaughter as an excuse.
Ye Liuyun hadn’t expected his feud with Hong Kun would draw the attention of the local guards.
However, when he realised Mu Yuantang was Mu Tianyang’s father, he knew things were more complicated than he had expected.
He swiftly set up a defensive formation and bought himself valuable time to gather his thoughts. He needed to decide if he should flee for now.
