Chapter 711 Being Outshined

“Hahaha, Young Master Ko, I must admit, I didn’t think you would dare do something so naughty right under our noses”, Elder of the Crystal Wood Sect laughed, but his eyes coldly looked upon the City Lord’s son.

The cultivators searching the plateau were standing in opposition, divided into two larger groups as Wu Long predicted, the continuously rising tension finally snapping the nerves even before anyone found the cause of the strange Spiritual Qi draining in the region.

“You left us no choice but to band together, this is just survival”, Ko Fuan’s expression was grave despite his calm answer, since he understood that even when they combined the local cultivators, with almost ten times the number on their side, they were still inferior to their opponents.

After all, among the sixteen people on the other side, half were Transcendents, with three people in Essence Gathering Realm.

On the other hand, Ko Fuan was one of only three Transcendents among the local cultivators, and even then, he had the highest cultivation despite only being at the 3rd level of the Essence Awakening Realm.

But their numerical advantage still made this more of a fight rather than a one-sided slaughter.

“Heh, look at these country bumpkins being brave!”, one of the fighters from the Seven Scars Guild scowled at the sight of the local cultivators putting up a strong front.

“Brave? Hmph! They clearly confused bravery with stupidity!”, another scoffed with a taunting look.

Some of the local cultivators clenched their fist, while others silently furrowed their eyebrows. “How about this? We’ll spare the first two groups and five rogues to join our side”, the man with the horizontal scar across his face squinted his eyes with a grin, while his colleague with the scar on his cheek and eyebrow chuckled with a look of amusement, clearly used to this behavior of the former.

‘Tch… such low and filthy tricks, this is why these lowlives are so loathsome to be around…’, the Elder of the Crystal Wood Sect inwardly clicked his tongue in disgust, but did not actively object.

However, to the surprise of the outsiders, the silence continued after, as the two sides stood opposite each other. A corner of Ko Fuan’s mouth twitched up as he anticipated this kind of tactic. He knew that simply warning about it first was enough, so he already told those on his side it might be used. Just simply tracking down this place required enough experience and intelligence. That explained the limited number of those who were here. Since not everyone in the vicinity of this region was able to do it, the rest likely still wandering in search, while those further away either being delayed by distance or being too far to detect the anomaly in the first place.

So for those who did manage to find the plateau, it was easy enough to see through those kinds of tricks and know it would only lower their chances of survival to suddenly switch sides on an unreliable promise.

“Heh, I told ya there’s no one this stupid to fall for it here, pay up”, the rowdy-looking Seven Scars Guild squad leader snickered. “Tch… was worth a try… there’s usually always one or two dumb enough, and a few more to follow after”, the horizontal-scarred man grumbled, taking out a leather pouch with some money and throwing it to his colleague.

The exchange made those who even slightly contemplated the offer grit their teeth as they felt mocked.

But as the leather pouch flew through the air the distance of 3 meters between the two men, it suddenly stopped midway, and then as if yanked by some force flew to the side with speed.

“…!!!”

“What the-!!!”

“Who’s there?!”

Both sides were immediately agitated when they felt multiple presences appear almost out of nowhere.

“Haha, see Boss? There’s always some loot to be found!”, a quick-witted looking man chuckled as the leather pouch landed in his hands.

“Qian, to think all your bragging about your new Equilibrium Dao was to show me this…”, a masked man who was called ‘Boss’ shook his head with a sigh, “…besides, does it even count as loot at this point? It’s not like you’re collecting belongings after battle, isn’t this just plain stealing? Do you mean to say you wasted so much time just to obtain the Dao of being a thief?”

“Hehe, you’re flattering me, Boss”, the one called Qian chuckled while bashfully scratching the back of his head.

“I had no such intention”

“Aw, I know you don’t really mean that! But you’re too naiv-… khu-khum, I mean, you misunderstand, Boss. This isn’t stealing…”, Qian first spoke in an upbeat manner, but as he almost misspoke, cleared his throat and continued with a smile as if nothing happened, “Isn’t one of them going to be dead soon anyway? So it’s not thievery, it’s a soon-to-be loot, an ‘advance-loot’!”

The man in the mask just silently looked at the man called Qian who was clearly very proud of his new invention, a smug smile on his face, while the two opposing groups from before looked in their direction in a daze.

But the reason no one spoke up or did anything was not because of their conversation, most didn’t even pay attention to their existence, especially as both of them did not have notable cultivation. It was because there were slightly more than two dozen women in dark-blue robes with white flowers and snowflake ornaments, around them. All of them wore semi-transparent veils that only left vague features of their faces visible, but even from those details it was plain they were all exquisite beauties. All without exception. Not to mention that while their robes were not designed to be suggestive, they still could not hide their sensual forms. Rather, the way they hid everything but the outline only flared imagination further.

However, even despite all that, perhaps the most shocking part was… freeweɓnovēl.coɱ

‘They’re all Transcendents…’, Crystal Wood Sect Elder gritted his teeth as he frantically was trying to guess what force did these mysterious newcomers belong to, ‘Even if they are barely above the gate of the Essence Awakening Realm, these numbers are nothing to scoff at…’

‘If this wasn’t such a situation…’, on the other hand the rowdy-looking Seven Scars Guild squad leader practically was drooling at the sight. He and his colleagues, not to mention many of the local cultivators, barely restrained themselves because of one fact. Antagonizing this group was dangerous.

On the other hand, Ko Fuan was desperately trying to figure out where did this third party come from, his eyes searching for any clues only to widen at the sight of a crevasse in the ground behind the beauties, one of thousands such scars in these otherwise flat elevated plains.

‘Don’t tell me… but we’ve searched that area already…’, he narrowed his eyes, not understanding how this powerful group hid in a small ravine at the bottom of that crevasse when it was already checked by several groups.

In fact, Ko Fuan himself remembered looking down the crevasse and exploring it with his Spiritual Sense. But there was no denying that the group emerged from there, as he could feel a slight distortion of Spiritual Qi from that place.

Meanwhile, an Elder of the Three Pillars Sect, surrounded by a group of Sect Protectors, who were nervously observing the situation, standing among the local cultivators, looked at the newcomers for another reason.

‘Isn’t that… the old man who came searching for Elder Yu before at the sect? He was accompanied by a young man and a beauty. H-he had such a powerful group?’, he thought seeing an old man in Essence Gathering Realm standing in front of the group, recognizing seeing him with Yu Zhen.

“Khm… I am an Elder of the Crystal Wood Sect, Jong Pomun. Would this Daoist reveal your-…”, the Elder started speaking first, but his words in amicable voice were cut short.

Roughly half of the beauties took out elegant thin-bladed long spears with two smaller blade protrusions to the sides and even smaller in between distantly resembling the form of a snowflake.

The temperature in the surroundings dropped as Icicles formed around the other half of the beauties.

The old man in front of the group took out a sword as well, “Hoho, this old man won’t say much, those affiliated with the Silver Wing City in this conflict can leave freely. Rather, if you linger we can misunderstand that you’re looking for trouble with us aiming for when we fight those people…”

The old man’s words sent a storm of reactions through both groups.

“You damn geezer! If you want a fight, we’ll give you one!”, the rowdy-looking squad leader of the Seven Scars Guild roared, his horizontal-scarred colleague also viciously squinting his eyes and glaring at the old man who just ruined everything for them.

“Tch…”, The Elder of the Crystal Wood Sect clicked his tongue and made a sour expression, but even as he raised his weapon, rather than being filled with a desire to fight, his eyes were of a man searching for a retreat path.