Chapter 1923: Eye for an Eye
When he heard what the other person said and thought about the man's outfit, Zu An’s expression darkened. He replied, “So you were the one who did those things in the Imperial Prison?”
The black-robed individual was stunned, but then he said with a smile, “So it was because of that. That’s right, I did make a trip to the Imperial Prison before.
“I have to admit that having a backer really is refreshing. How could I have had the opportunity to absorb the cultivations of two state dukes otherwise? That really was an incredible experience! I was originally stuck on the air mortal stage for many years without any chance to progress, but now that I've received the help of two state dukes, I can already feel the doorstep of the wisdom mortal soul stage. I’ll be able to become a grandmaster soon! Haha, I really have to thank the two of them.”
Immediately after, he looked at Zu An greedily, saying, “I never expected the heavens to actually be so generous, to bring someone like you straight to me! Not only will I be able to solidify my wisdom mortal soul stage cultivation, I might even be able to go a step higher and give the ascension mortal soul a shot…”
Suddenly, his eyes narrowed, because he discovered that he had already lost sight of Zu An. It was quite the shock to him! He quickly evaded to one side and extended his demonic technique in all directions. That way, no matter how fast the opponent was, as long as Zu An made contact with his body, all of his cultivation would be sucked dry.
Hmph, that pretty boy seemed to practice a similar skill, but how could it possibly compare to the secret manual I have? My cultivation that's already on the verge of reaching grandmaster rank is more than enough to crush him! If the two of us really face each other, of course I’ll have the advantage!
“Well, isn’t someone good at spouting bullshit!” a voice suddenly said as a hand clamped down on his neck.
How is he so fast?
The black-robed man was surprised, but he didn’t panic.
Hmph, you have no chance left now that you’ve touched my body!
He directed his demonic technique through his neck to try and steal Zu An’s cultivation.
Huh? Why isn’t it working?
The black-robed man suddenly blinked in confusion, finally feeling alarmed. Immediately after, he felt all of his cultivation suddenly seeming to boil up within him. All of his ki seemed to rush excitedly up to his throat before being sucked into the opponent's hand.
“How is this possible?!” he exclaimed, his eyes almost popping out in shock. His own divine ability actually couldn't compare to the opponent’s!
Just how old is this brat? He shouldn’t have cultivation higher than mine, even if he started cultivating the moment he left his mother’s womb!
My demonic art was something I just barely obtained by the skin of my teeth from an ancient ruined shrine.
That shrine had been what remained of an ancient and powerful sect that had been swallowed up by the endless river of time. The demonic art was the skill their sect had been founded on; through it, they had left all the cultivators of the world terror-stricken at their appearance. According to the records on the tablet inscription the black-robed man had found, the demonic art had been created by analyzing a piece of an even more ancient unspeakable technique. Its grade was extremely high, and even if one encountered other similar absorption skills, it would be able to swallow them up instead.
Why am I the one being sucked dry instead?
This pretty boy can’t possibly have cultivated that even more ancient technique, can he?
Even so, he couldn't even think about those things for much longer, because his cultivation was completely sucked out in an instant. He didn’t have an ounce of strength left in him. Now, he fully understood that Zu An's skill really was more powerful. His face pale, the black-robed man murmured, “You sucked it out so fast, much faster than me…”
Zu An tossed him away casually, then looked down at the black-robed man who was now lying on the ground like a dead dog. He said seriously, “This is a good chance for you to have a taste of the pain you've inflicted upon others.”
The black-robed man’s expression was filled with suffering. What could be more painful than having all of one's hard-earned cultivation stolen away? Not too long ago, he had sucked away someone else’s cultivation and daydreamed about a beautiful life, only to fall from the clouds straight into the dirt.
However, he quickly realized that that wasn’t the most painful thing. The pretty boy suddenly stomped down on his knees.
Crack!
In that instant, his legs were both crushed to pieces. Every single bone was smashed into fragments. He wanted to roll all over the ground in pain, but he didn’t have the strength to! He could only curl up like a cooked shrimp. Forget about the fact that he was now a cultivation cripple, with that level of injury, even if he still had his cultivation, he still wouldn't necessarily have been able to recover. He screamed endlessly in misery. In the end, his body was too weak and he could no longer hold on due to his terrible injuries; he passed away in agony.
A vicious demon of a generation met his end here, just like that.
All of that happened in the time it took for sparks to fly off a flint. A moment before, King Dai had heard Sir Xu speaking bold and visionary words and felt reassured. And yet, a moment later, he had been beaten like a dead dog. That stark contrast in expectations and reality almost made King Dai's jaw drop straight to the floor.
“What the hell is going on? Why are all of these people such trash? If you couldn't do anything, that's fine, but you should have just told me so I could run away earlier! What the hell were you bragging for?!” King Dai moaned, already about to cry. He quickly ordered his bodyguards and captain of the guards, “Hurry and stop him!”
He turned tail and ran into another room. He no longer had any hope left that his useless, idiotic subordinates would be able to kill that bastard Zu. He could only stall for time.
Zu An walked forward. The guards gulped and reflexively backed up. After all, they had watched everything that happened so far with their own two eyes…
Even if King Dai hadn't known how strong the rogue cultivators and Sir Xu were, his personal guards had interacted with them quite often. They knew that those people were far stronger than them. Even if these guards had formations to support them when they fought together, if they fought against Sir Xu and those other rogue cultivators, not only would it be a tough fight, they wouldn’t even be at an advantage. Wouldn’t they just be throwing their lives away in front of Zu An?
However, a military order had to be obeyed. If guards like them dared to go against King Dai’s orders, once the court looked into things, not only would they die for sure, their families would also be faced with bleak fates.
They all looked toward the guard captain. Once he gave the word, they would fight with everything they had. That way, they would at least be leaving their families with a bit of relief payment.
The guard captain’s expression changed several times. When he saw Zu An approach closer and closer, he roared loudly, “Your respected self’s cultivation is god-like, and you actually even know eye techniques! Just a look was enough to seriously injure me! Ah, I’m fainting, I’m fainting…” Then, he fell to the ground very 'naturally' and fainted.
Zu An was stunned. After meeting Immortal Ruler Baopu and those other terrifying beings, he had wanted to learn that kind of ‘sword within the eye’ skill. After all, wouldn't that mean he could cut down an opponent without even really using a sword? However, why had this person already fallen before he even learned such a thing?
The other guards’ eyes widened. They muttered among themselves, “Even something like this works?”
Their eyes suddenly rolled backward, and one after another, they screamed that they were ‘fainting’. They fell to the ground, and even when they were down, they still continued to say, “What a powerful eye technique, I was hit…”
“I was hit too!”
When he saw the previously vigorous and fierce-looking troop lying all over the place across the ground, Zu An felt quite speechless.
As expected, the subordinates were just like the ruler!
He took a step forward and instantly appeared in the room King Dai had run into. However, he saw that King Dai was in the middle of a transport formation, and his body was wrapped within a ball of blue light. It was clear that the transport formation had already been successfully activated
When King Dai saw Zu An come in, he cockily made a ‘bye-bye’ gesture. He had finally managed to get away from this monster!
Zu An reached out, but he couldn’t grab anything. He could feel that a spatial force was repelling him.
Right at that moment, the blue light flickered, and King Dai disappeared.
Zu An frowned. Even though he had some understanding of formations, his understanding of the natural laws of space was still lacking, as expected. He closed his eyes and silently sensed his surroundings. Then, his eyes opened and he stared in a certain direction.
King Dai most likely went in that direction. This kind of transport formation’s creation method has already been lost, and it's extremely precious. The amount of ki stones needed is also pretty excessive. I wonder which secret dungeon King Dai fished this out of, for him to have this kind of life-saving measure.
Of course, such a small-scale transport formation definitely couldn’t send anyone too far.
However, there was an easier way…
He walked straight up to the guard captain. The others who had secretly opened their eyes to check out the situation immediately closed their eyes tightly. However, their trembling eyelashes showed that they were already utterly terrified.
“Stop pretending to be dead. Where did this transport formation send King Dai?” Zu An asked, giving the guard captain a kick.
The guard captain didn’t dare to continue pretending to be asleep. He immediately opened his eyes. At first, he was a bit hesitant, but then he heard Zu An say indifferently, “The amount of manpower and goods needed to make this formation isn’t small. As the leader of his personal guards, there's no way you wouldn't know about it. You only have one chance to reply. Don’t test my patience.”
The guard captain quickly said, “The Meng manor! This formation was set up by Madam Dai, so she made the destination the nearby Meng manor. As for exactly where, I really don’t know…”
Zu An nodded. He didn’t say anything else. His legs buckled, and he rocketed into the air and quickly disappeared into the horizon.
The guard captain’s mouth hung wide open. He murmured, “Holy smokes, just what is that guy’s cultivation rank…”
The other guards also woke up one after the other. One replied, “He can fly, so he should at least be at the master rank, right?”
“Master rank? He just took out so many experts in this manor. Sir Xu was at the peak of the master rank himself. I think he’s definitely at least at the grandmaster rank.”
“Grandmaster? The king really provoked bad company this time…” the guard captain muttered to himself.
Another guard couldn't help but say, “Captain, doesn't it seem as if you sold out the king just now?”
“Did I?” the guard captain replied with a different expression. “Did any of you help the king buy any time? What I did wasn’t selling out the king! Hmph, we're all on the same boat here. No one said anything just now, understood?”
“Understood! We were all beaten unconscious by that bastard. We have no idea what happened at all!” the remaining guards quickly replied, becoming of one mind. At the same time, they looked to the sky, fearing that calling him ‘bastard’ would provoke him into returning.
…
Meanwhile, while Zu An was flying in the air, a formation vaguely began to appear there. Several presences seemed to wake all around him, with quite a few divine senses scanning in his direction. He thought to himself, So the capital did establish a formation restricting flight after all.
Fortunately, the Meng clan wasn’t too far from King Dai Manor. He quickly descended into the Meng clan’s courtyard. Only then did the formation in the sky gradually disappear.
Could this formation be Yan Xiangu’s work? It's quite ingenious indeed.
…
Meanwhile, in the Meng clan’s study, Meng Yi was sampling some tea while carefully listening to what the beautiful woman across from him was saying. That woman was quite young, and yet there was a dignified and strong expression between her brows. Even Sir Meng who had gone through all kinds of ups and downs in the court, was nodding continuously as he listened. Furthermore, the woman’s cheeks were beautiful like peach blossoms, her skin looking as if it were glowing. Her hand that was holding a teacup seemed to have been sculpted out of white jade. Her voice was sweet and melodious, but there was a hint of decisive firmness behind it.
“Father, the reason why our previous plan failed is mainly because I overlooked one thing!”
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