Weisheng look towards the pavilion and he saw Li Shen’s unscathed figure walk out.
A feeling of invincibility was radiating from him and Weisheng couldn’t help but have his skull go numb.
Messing with him was a major blunder on his part! This person likely had the ability to ruin everything he had built up until now.
Not wasting time, he immediately turned around and dashed off.
Li Shen coldly watched as he ran with his tail between his legs.
The three cultivators, however, floated into the air to block his path.
“So what if you are the rumored Faceless Hero? Your nothing more than a Sea Expansion Realm cultivator in the end.”
One of the cultivators said with ridicule.
Li Shen looked at these three with complete indifference.
“Why are you ants standing in front of me?”
Step.
He casually said as he step forward off the ledge, his foot stepping on the void.
The three cultivators wore ugly expressions when they heard Li Shen’s words, but they quickly turned to shock when they saw him flying.
“Y-You, how are you flying?!”
Li Shen continued to walk ignoring the question.
“Who cares?! JUST KILL HIM!!”
With weapons in hand, the three cultivators radiated brutal killing intent as they flew towards Li Shen.
With a thought, Li Shen’s Soul Sense extend rapidly into the surrounding two hundred meters.
‘Soul Attack?’
The three cultivators immediately put up defenses in their minds in preparation, but they didn’t slow down.
However, contrary to their thoughts, Li Shen didn’t carry out a Soul Attack. Immediately after his Soul Sense extended out, he waved his hand to the three cultivators.
“??!!!”
All of a sudden, the Spiritual Qi in their dantian and around them trembled.
Like a bird that got its wings clipped, they began falling from out of the air, unable to control the qi in their bodies to maintain flight.
“W-What?!!”
The three were completely shocked, but Li Shen’s figure suddenly vanish leaving an afterimage.
Reaching the first person, that cultivator didn’t have time to react.
His head was cleanly detached from his body by a blade of water, spurting a fountain of blood.
Before his blood could splatter on Li Shen’s clothes he was already next to the second cultivator.
Like a river, his blade flowed to cut down the three Peak stage Foundation Realm cultivators leaving a trail of water along with three decapitated corpses.
The bodies landed on the ground with loud thuds while his figure was already flying through the sky towards Weisheng.
Figures would leap from the shadows to intercept him but they were cut down all the same.
Even as rune formations tried to trap him, only a trail of dead bodies was created, completely the image of this place being ghost city.
At the city’s west exit, Weisheng’s disheveled figure could be seen frantically running towards the gate, a broken shield in hand that looked more like scrap metal than anything.
His face was filled with mortifying dread, and the thought of him dying here couldn’t leave his mind.
Seeing the gate his eye lit up with a bit of joy, but that bit immediately faded when Li Shen’s figure suddenly appeared in front of him like a specter.
No, not quite. With his blood-covered clothes and mask, Li Shen resembled more of a malevolent spirit that came to harvest his life.
Backing away, Weisheng said.
“You really deserve your reputation. To think you were able to cut down all of my men, and foiled my traps so easily. Any other genius would struggle in your situation.”
To give Weisheng credit, even in this situation he was able to appear calm and composed.
“If you hadn’t tried to investigate me you wouldn’t have appeared on my radar, and the existence of someone like you in the dark would have probably gone undiscovered by me.”
Hearing Li Shen’s words, Weisheng wore a regretful smile as he said.
“Believe me, I’m regretting it now. If I could-”
Weisheng went to continue but Li Shen immediately cut him off.
“No more stalling, if I’m not mistaken you probably called your grandfather here.”
Weisheng stiffen.
“The Ming Clan is forty minutes west from here, if your grandfather hurries as a Nascent Realm cultivator, he could use about four teleportations to reach here in only twenty. No wonder you chose this place, however, it’s only been 9 minutes.”
Weisheng trembled, Li Shen was proving to be more and more frightening. He had never gone up against someone like him before.
He had out schemed numerous people and infiltrated various academies and clans to become a puppet master behind the scenes, pulling the strings from the shadows.
His presence was felt but his identity couldn’t be ascertained by anyone, and they had even given him a name.
“The Hidden Puppet Master.”
He had spent years secretly building up his connections and power while everyone else was running around increasing their cultivations to fight out in the open.
However, facing this masked person, he felt as if with just one glance he had seen through everything Weisheng did.
Weisheng was not in control of the situation and for the first time, he was scared for his life. He had never been one to fight since scheming was his only focus, so despite his cultivation, he had never trained in martial arts to use it properly.
Weisheng turned to run, he was going to die but he didn’t want that. He knew it was hopeless but he can’t die like this!
However, before he could reach far, Li Shen left an afterimage and appeared behind him to grab a hand full of his hair.
The back of his knee was hit and Weisheng dropped to his knees before a wind Sword Qi materialize to hover inches away from his neck.
His head was pulled back to make his eyes meet Li Shen’s own.
Those red eyes bore into Weisheng's soul making his heart go cold.
“I’m not going to kill you so relax.”
Hearing that, a confused expression slowly came over Weisheng’s face. However, it quickly morphed into an unyielding expression.
“Forget it! If you plan on me working for you then just kill me! There’s no way I’ll become a subordinate to anyone, I’m Ming Weisheng and I bow before no one!”
Li Shen look at Weisheng and thought.
‘He’s a proud genius no doubt about that.’
He then said to him.
“It doesn’t matter if you want to work for me or not. To tell you the truth, I’ve always known about you before you even started investigating me.”
Weisheng’s face fell.
“W-What?”
Behind the mask, Li Shen smiled, and even though Weisheng couldn’t’ see it he could hear it in his distorted voice.
“I had no way to lure you out of your cave in the Ming Clan, so I spent a few months to nearly a year concocting this scenario.
"It wasn’t easy to bait you into trying to find out my identity so I can know who you really were, but what was even was trickier, was making you believe the person investigating you wasn’t me so you would be confident to use yourself as bait.”
“You-just what are you talking about?!”
Weisheng hearing this couldn’t believe it, there was no way.
With a ridiculing expression, he spat out.
“Bullshit!! I don’t believe it.
“There’s no way you had planned all of this, how could you? I chose to investigate you, no one influence me. And as for me using myself as bait to draw out the person investigating me, that was every bit my plan. Are you trying to take me for a fool or something?”
Weisheng refused to believe he was manipulated by someone, that was something he did. He was absolutely unwilling to admit someone had outsmarted him.
'If-If that was the case...'
The only thing he had that made him unique, that made him comparable to any genius in this generation would be inadequate.
He would be inadequate.
So he absolutely refused to believe it!
Li Shen only chuckled at his reaction.
“Have you ever heard of Decision Forced Manipulation? Well, you probably haven’t, seeing as I’m probably the first to use it.”
Weisheng didn’t understand what Li Shen was talking about but Li Shen only continued.
“Decision Forced Manipulation, is when you make a person choose or do something that’s in your favor.
“Ah Ah.”
Li Shen suddenly stopped Weisheng from speaking.
“It’s different from ordinary manipulation. It has a structured system where you use subtle movements, images, words, and even smell to create gaps in a person's psyche for them to be more susceptible to be tricked.
“For example, you walking past a few servants and overhearing them talking about this Faceless Hero and wondering what he looked like.”
Weisheng’s expression slowly fell.
“Or you being told by a friend about this animal that uses itself as a decoy to catch its prey in various reiterations but with the same concept. Create more of these scenarios and you'll be surprise how easy it is to influence a person's decision without them knowing.”
Li Shen after saying that then looked down at Weisheng whose face was filled with utter stupefaction.
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