The main entrance of Lingzhou City’s Martial Arts Department (MAD).
Duan Tianhe and Cheng Dongfeng were standing on both sides of the entrance, with several other leaders of the MAD.
An off-road vehicle was slowly approaching, before stopping before the MAD building.
The door opened, and a middle-aged man who looked around forty wearing training robes stepped out.
Duan Tianhe and Cheng Dongfeng went forward to meet him and offered a fist-palm salute, addressing him as Grandmaster Ji.
Grandmaster was an honorific for all individuals rank-seven and above, which was why both rank-eights and nines were addressed so as well.
Incidentally, the middle-aged man before them was a rank-nine martial artist.
His name was Ji Dongxu, an elite of Xibei’s Ji clan.
The Xibei Ji clan’s base was in Old Xi’an, and it was rumored that the clan was linked to the Jiang clan of the Yellow Emperor’s tomb, which was one of the Five Holy Grounds of martial arts. When it comes to their depth, the Ji clan was stronger than the Ji clan, Murong clan, and the Long clan, who were the three great clans of Jiangnan!
On the surface, the Ji clan was presided over by a divine-tier elite, and rumor even has it that there was a Void-tier elder still alive.
Wang Hou recently reached the void-tier, but was known as Jiang He’s First Man, because he was the first Void-elite who ascended to void-tier. Moreover, being the highest authority of the MAD and considered a public figure, Wang Hou was well known to all citizens, martial artists, and Awakened.
The First Man of the Hua Nation has a certain extent of standard.
But as a matter of fact, Wang Hou was not the only void-tier elite in the Hua Nation.
For example, each of the five sacred grounds had more than one void-tier. Even Dong Haichuan, the founding master of the Eight Trigrams School was already void-tier, and since people of that level could live up to five hundred, no one could know if certain ancient schools or martial clans had such ancient monsters hidden behind their doors.
After some self-introductions, Ji Dongxu was more or less acquainted with everyone.
“Thanks for making the journey, Grandmaster Ji,” Duan Tinahe said then. “I’ve got my people to prepare a banquet so that you may rest up, this way please…”
“Then I shall not hold back.”
Ji Dongxu laughed out loud. “I like the hand-eaten lamb in Lingzhou city a lot. I’ve often come by to have it.”
Duan Tianhe breathed a sigh of inward relief at that.
He had been worried that the disciple of an old martial clan sent to guard Lingzhou city might prove arrogant and difficult, but it seemed that his worries were excessive.
They were having a lively chat and about to get on a ride to the hotel when Ji Dongxu’s eyes moved towards the direction of Jinyintan Village. Even from a dozen kilometers away, the dull explosion did not escape Ji Dongxu’s notice.
And it was not just him—both Duan Tianhe and Cheng Dongfeng heard the explosion as well.
The trio traded a look before all of them leapt up to the top of the MAD tower and looked out, only to find flames rising into the air at Jinyintan Village.
Soon, a powerful aura burst out…
Ju Dongxu’s scowled and somberly said, “Powerful… even from this distance, I could feel a strong threat. His ability is perhaps nearing divine-tier!”
“What?”
The look on Cheng Dongfeng and Duan Tianhe’s faces fell at that.
“Could a divine-tier elite be attacking Jiang He?”
Then, in less than ten seconds…
Every commotion faded and the powerful aura also promptly disappeared, and Ji Dongxu sighed. “The battle is already over…”
“Damn it!”
Cheng Dongfeng gritted his teeth and clenched his fist, exclaiming tragically, “The Sky Demon Cult actually mobilized a divine-tier elite?! What are our nation’s elites doing? How could they not notice? Jiang He… Is Jiang He alright?”
Neither Duan Tianhe nor Ji Dongxu spoke.
In their perspective, Jiang He was probably… gone.
Noting their silence, Cheng Dongfeng promptly leapt off the roof, intent on heading to Jinyintan Village to see what was going on. Even so, Ji Dongxu stopped him, and Duan Tianher gave chases as well, barking, “Don’t do anything reckless, Old Cheng!”
“The situation at Jinyintan Village is unknown right now. It’s too dangerous to dive in!”
After some thought, he whipped out his phone and said, “I’ll contact Commander Chen and see if he could divert that military elite from Yuzhen…”
“Eh?’
Even before Duan Tianhe’s finished, his eyes narrowed on his phone screen.
A call had reached him by coincidence.
And the caller ID actually showed ‘Jiang He’.
He looked up at Cheng Dongfeng, and then at Ji Dongxu.
Ji Dongxu appeared puzzled.
To tell the truth, he had been cultivating in seclusion before, and after he stepped out, he was immediately sent here by his family, so he did not know who Jiang He was at all.
“Answer it, quickly!”
Cheng Dongfeng exclaimed in delight. “I knew the kid was alright!”
Duan Tianhe breathed a sigh of relief inside, but he kept a composed appearance, “What if a Sky Demon Cultist got Jiang He’s phone?”
He answered the call and put it on loudspeaker.
“Hey, Chief Duan!”
Jiang He’s voice spoke over on the other end, and before Duan Tianhe could speak, Cheng Dongfeng moved closer and laughed out loud, “Haha! Are you alright, Jiang He? I was just saying how the good never live long—so how could you die easily, kid?”
“…”
Jiang He did a double take even as he searched the corpses of the Sky Demon Cultists.
Was that a curse against him?
Cheng Dongfeng, however, added in curiosity, “What’s going on, Jiang He?” Have you been attacked by the Sky Demon Cult? I could feel an aura that could match a divine-tier elite’s… how did you escape from such an elite?”
“Escape?”
Jiang He laughed. “What do you mean, divine-tier? Sure, there were quite a lot of people who attacked me, and one of them was quite strong, but he was not that strong—just a little short of divine-tier.”
After all, Jiang He had encountered divine-tier elites before.
Feral Kings were of that level as well, and he himself had slain a newly ascended Feral King in the Black King Drake, which was how he could know that much.
“Eh?”
Jiang He suddenly exclaimed in delight. “I found it, I found it…”
Over at the other end of the call, Cheng Dongfeng and Duan Tianhe had a lot of questions, and could not help asking when he heard Jiang He say that, “Found what?”
“Token plate!”
Jiang He replied. “I found the Sky Demon Cult elite’s token plate… Hmm, it looks different from the decrees that Fiend, Decans, and Elders held.”
After a careful look, Jiang He decided that the token plate was quite good looking.
The design was intricate and the craftsmanship excellent, with ‘sage’ inscribed behind and ‘right’ inscribed on its face.
“Sage?”
“Right?”
Duan Tianhe frowned in return and said, “I’ve never heard of such a token plate. Are you sure the ones you killed are Sky Demon Cultists, Jiang He?”
“I’m sure.”
Jiang He replied. “I just found Decan Decrees from his buddies’ corpses.”
“What the hell!”
After Cheng Dongfeng pondered for a bit, he suddenly exclaimed in shock, “Sage… The Sky Demon Cultists call their religion the Sky Sage Faith, so that ‘sage’ would refer to that. As for ‘right’…”
His voice shook a little, his Adam’s Apple rolling as he muttered in disbelief, “Above the Sky Demon Cult Elders are the two Sentinels, the Sentinel of the Left and the Sentinel of the Right. Could this belong to the Sentinel of the Right?”
“The Sentinel of the Right?”
“That’s it, that’s it! I just heard one of the two Decans yell ‘Lord Sentinel or something. Looks like this dude has to be the Sentinel of the Right…”
Jiang He sighed. “No wonder he was so strong, and it felt like he was not much weaker than a Feral that recently ascended as a Feral King… looks like an elite who had perfect grasp over the Boundary of Wills.”
He strode towards the front gates of his yard and found three more token plates from the corpses, saying, “There are three more corpses here: Speed Star, Sword Star, and one more…”
Speed Star and Sword Star were easy to identify since the back of their token plate were both their token plates were marked with Decans and the front marked with ‘Speed’ and ‘Sword’ respectively. And yet, after getting the old woman’s token plate, Jiang He did a double-take and said hesitantly, “This is an Elder Decree, but a ‘one’ is written on the face. Could this granny be the Senior Elder of the Sky Demon Cult?”
Over on the other end of the call, both Duan Tianhe and Cheng Dongfeng were utterly shocked, unsure what to say just then.
Beside them, Ji Dongxu’s blinked and could not help asking, “Who is this Jiang He? According to what I know, the Sky Demon Cult’s Senior Elder is indeed a granny, but she is quite powerful and almost gained perfect grasp over the Boundary of Wills!”
He then sighed. “Cutting down the Sentinel of the Right, the Senior Elder as well as several Decans… could he be a divine-tier elite?”
Ji Dongxu turned serious at that and said, “Chief Duan, Master Cheng. This is a little untoward of you. Since this Jiang He is a divine-tier elite in Lingzhou City, I should have visited him first.”
“Who?”
Since Duan Tianhe’s phone was on loudspeaker, Jiang He could naturally and clearly hear Ji Dongxu’s words. “Who are you?” He could not help asking. “The Sentinel of the Right would smear me, and you would too?”
“Forget it, not bothered. Old Duan, send some guys here—I’m off to look elsewhere.”
Beep!
Jiang He promptly hung up.
After all, the potato landmines had blown up certain corpses, leaving obscure puddles of flesh.
Jiang He did not want to dig graves for those because it was so disgusting—having Duan Tianhe send someone deal with it was best.
He headed outside the walls of his front yard and found it blown to a mess. Weirdly, however, the walls near the potato landmines were undamaged, whereas one torn corpse after another were blown across every direction.
Jiang He vaulted over the wall and back into the farm, beside the Cloudscraper Vine, where he found the Flowing Cloud Holy Child’s shoes, clothes, and skeleton. “Huh?” He exclaimed in surprise, “Did you get rid of someone trying to slip inside my house from the wall?”
The Cloudscraper Vine that had retracted into itself shook a few times. It was stretching its nine thick tendrils leisurely, and at the center of the vines was Fourth Elder, who was being wrapped by the Cloudscraper Vine’s tendrils and leaves into a dumpling.
His mouth was stuffed by several leaves, and he struggled firmly once he saw Jiang He, his whimpers muffled.
Delighted, Jiang He exclaimed, “There’s actually one alive?”
“Good job, Cloudscraper Vine!”
Reaching out the plant’s thick, firm tendrils, Jiang He encouraged, “After I torture and torment him a bit, I’ll give you his corpse for nutrients!”
Pleased, the tendrils rubbed itself intimately on Jiang He’s body.
“No, no, no… rubbing is alright, but don’t come inside me… and stay in the yard unless I command otherwise!”
The Cloudscraper Vine was actually trying to enter Jiang He just then.
Scowling, he could not help gasping when he saw the tendrils that had thickened and elongated.
“Woah!”
“That’s a hundred meter long now, is it not?”
“Could you still enter my body when you’re so huge?”
The Cloudscraper Vine could creep under his skin, even forming a green, pollution-free armor. But could it still enter now that it was so thick and huge?
