Archfiend

“How’s that related?” Xu Yangyi said calmly, “Laurent, you’re only thinking that the Dracul will intervene, but this will attract the Corvinus’ attention, too. When I walk up their door with this product they won’t have any further misgivings. On the contrary, they’ll open their doors and welcome me.”

“But…” Laurent hesitated. The fear in his heart regarding the House of Dracul was still impossible to be rid of.

“No buts,” Xu Yangyi said decisively, his voice chopping nail and slicing steel. “I’m changing plans.”

“On the day of the auction, I’ll show up in person.”

“What?! That’s too dangerous!” Laurent objected.

Xu Yangyi shook his head. “You’re wrong. This will only boost the worth of my stock. Even if the Dracul want to recruit me on the spot, what about the Corvinus? There’s nothing I need to do. I’ll just watch them raise my price. What’s wrong with that?”

Laurent looked at Xu Yangyi for a good few seconds like he’d seen a ghost. He shook his head and sighed deeply with emotion, “No wonder everyone says Chinese people are sly… err, no, what I mean is smart. Today, I can consider myself to have seen this myself…”

“Right, Your Highness, we must offer the Dracul a sample. I am unsure…” He nervously watched Xu Yangyi. He also realized that the latter didn’t seem to want to declare his identity.

“Laurent…” Xu Yangyi sighed. “Are you actually stupid or faking it?”

“Putting the Spirit Sand into plain water or putting it into a capsule, do you really need me to teach you?”

“Yes! You think so thoroughly, Your Highness,” Laurent laughed heartily. It wasn’t that he didn’t think of these methods, but massive excitement caused his current train of thought to be somewhat disorderly.

With his fill of laughter had, the old man then slightly bowed. “Then Your Highness… shall I leave first? I’ll use your Spirit Sand to first manufacture a sample for the Dracul? Believe me, I guarantee that they’ll approve it within three days! What do you plan to do in these coming days, sir?”

“I’m planning on arranging a few contingencies to help you.” Xu Yangyi glanced towards Danny’s direction outside the door, a smile but not a smile on his face.

“You’re saying…” Laurent took a deep breath and his expression also became grave.

“You were followed,” Xu Yangyi said plainly.

In an instant, Laurent started to become nervous.

“It’s not the Dracul… It’s… qi that I’ve never felt before. It’s brimming with a wild nature, just like… hmm, a wolf?”

“The Corvinus?!” Laurent immediately said.

“Possibly.” Xu Yangyi calmly waved his hand. “Let me to handle this. Don’t interfere.”

Laurent hesitated a little and left. As his spirit-body vanished, he left a parting remark, “Your Highness… be a little careful. The Corvinus and the Dracul are different. If said that the Dracul hide their pride and arrogance at the bottom of their hearts, then the Corvinus are definitely ones who regard blood lineage… Their pride is on the surface and in their blood. They disdain all cultivators outside of America, to the extent that they practically despise them…”

“Oh?” Xu Yangyi looked at the ceiling and said, “They even dare regard China’s cultivation world like that?”

“Correct, Your Highness. Maybe because the amount of Chinese cultivators who’ve entered America are too few. Their creed is ‘blood lineage is supreme, and skin color above all else’. They claim white to be the purest color, and their Full Moon Grand Duke is also a white werewolf.”

“I understand,” Xu Yangyi replied.

Laurent’s spirit-body transformed into a breadth of white light and dissipated. Peacefully, Xu Yangyi drank another cup of coffee and then put on the Thousand Illusions to change his appearance and walk out. He prepared to start understanding the lay of New York’s land.

This was the enemy’s lair. He needed to clearly familiarize himself with the topography. After all… there was a chance that he would be staying here for no short period of time.

As soon as Xu Yangyi left, five men in black clothes walked in. After making a few inquiries at the front desk, a tall, thin man with a bald head furrowed his brows. 

“He left? In that case, please have him contact this number once he returns. Thank you.”

The five men left the hotel, and the leading man sighed, “I don’t even know where that wild cultivator’s from… There’s no information whatsoever being released to the city government. Yesterday evening, the mayor was so worried that he called us four times in a row. If we don’t figure out his identity and goal within a week, we might as well hand in our resignations.”

Xu Yangyi folded his arms and slowly walked down the street. Step by step, he observed the world’s most renowned city.

“The buildings are tall, and the streets is neat, too,” he murmured, and a faintly imperceptible arc perked up at the crook of his mouth. “But… there are also some other things that aren’t so clean.”

There was an extremely vague qi, concealed very meticulously, situated in a gap that 99% of cultivators’ spiritual senses failed to cover. However, he belonged to the constantly vigilant 1%.

“Maybe you just didn’t expect that my spiritual sense is far beyond same-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators.” He closed his eyes, and his spiritual sense erupted in a flash. Swiftly, it encountered another spiritual sense.

Bang! The two spiritual senses collided, and a blazing tide that only cultivators could see flared.

On a street corner over 3,000 meters away, a white man wearing a baseball cap snapped his head up and looked far away in disbelief.

“How?! His spiritual sense can actually see me? This is the guy from last night! His spiritual sense is so strong!”

His brows tightly locked together. He could already feel that the other’s speed was like a piercing arrow furiously shooting towards him!

“Not the ground… he’s not moving on the ground!” He quickly raised his head up and followed the closely grouped skyscrapers with his gaze. Immediately, his eyes turned completely red.

In his red retinas, he saw… a lightning-fast silhouette charging towards him!

Gloomy-faced, he stared for a few good seconds and flickered away to a construction site. 

Behind him, while his pursuer’s speed was gradually increasing, his own movements weren’t slow either. As he made his way twenty meters down into construction site’s basement, however, a swoosh rang out. Xu Yangyi’s figure was already standing in front of him.

“Corvinus?” Xu Yangyi brushed an eye over the man. The cultivator shadowing him appeared to be around twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, and he was dressed quite normally, but… 

He was a Marquis!

The same as Laurent, a newly advanced Marquis! America was such a country with pitifully few Marquises. A Marquis could already be considered a local tyrant.

“It’s no honor to meet you, but I might as well express my courtesy as a noble American cultivator—If you can understand and return my greeting. Although, I didn’t even think that a cultivator of your rank would have such perception.” The basement was pitch-black, but this wasn’t any obstruction to the two of them. The man took a deep breath and bowed gracefully. “Versailles Anthony is my name. I hope your vapid brain can clearly remember some of this.”

“You’re not a direct descendant,” Xu Yangyi remarked

“Of course,” Versailles laughed. “The Corvinus wouldn’t use a direct descendant to monitor a Marquis. That’s only something those dirty bats could do.”

Xu Yangyi faintly smiled. “You said… monitor?”

“To be exact, I have something I want to tell you. I hope you can clean your ears out and respectfully listen. Still, I have my doubts; is His Highness’s vision as muddled as an elderly man’s? He actually wants a yellow monkey to join us?” All of Versailles's muscles began to ceaselessly swell, as if they were alive. His clothes tore apart at the seams, over an inch of black wolf fur started to grow out non-stop from his skin, and his mouth began to elongate. “I heard that your strength can match that powerhouse Tamamo? I must apologize, but in my impression, Chinese cultivators have nothing to brag about. So, I think I’ll give you a little ‘reminder’ first…”

He didn’t even finish speaking.

Because in the next second, a hand was already clamping down on his mouth, leaving him unable to utter a single word!

Crack crack crack! Versailles’s joints explosively crackled. In an instant, he was a 2.34-meter-tall werewolf. However, his mouth was still being shut by Xu Yangyi.

“You shouldn’t doubt.” Xu Yangyi calmly observed the giant lycan. Versailles was struggling with all of his power to open his mouth, but he only felt as if his mouth locked by a vice! He couldn’t even budge by a fraction of a hair!

BOOM! Xu Yangyi’s palm exploded with an orb of white light. Following a sonorous bang, the giant lycan flew back and slammed directly through two pillars. With a rumble, he collided with a wall and sunk into an area of falling stones.

“Stand up.” Xu Yangyi slowly walked over, his steps as leisurely as if he was strolling through a pavilion. “I can hit much harder than you.”

There was no sound.

Clack, clack… The sound of his leather shoes rhythmically tapped the ground. But after he took three steps, a sudden gust of wind echoed at his ear. The werewolf had surprisingly rushed his left flank without the slightest murmur!

“AWOOO!!!” With a thunderous howl, a white light flashed in the darkness. A bloody maw tore down at Xu Yangyi’s throat, but a crash rang out in the next second. The werewolf’s mouth had actually been clamped shut by the same hand!

“Grr… Grr!” While furious groans came from the lycan’s mouth, Versailles only felt his rage wishing to soar to the heavens! This wasn’t because he hadn’t managed to hit Xu Yangyi, though. In fact, before coming, he had prepared himself to lose the fight. In case yesterday’s events were true. 

No, what he couldn’t accept was such a humiliating way of losing!

Twice!

He basically hadn’t seen Xu Yangyi act. In a mere flash, his mouth was clamped down in a death grip!

The same way of defeat!

On no uncertain terms could a pure human’s strength match a werewolf’s! A human’s speed absolutely couldn’t match a vampire’s! This was a constant law!

And yet… this human had done so! Versailles even felt that Xu Yangyi was more like a demonic beast! No… to the degree of a Half Moon Marquis! The strongest Half Moon Marquis among the House of Corvinus’s echelon!

“Maybe you didn’t know.” Xu Yangyi looked into Versailles’s blood-red eyes. “But I might be a demon.”

“My demon body, however, is much higher than yours in rank.”

The Wolfbane and an ordinary lycan were certainly not on the same level.

Boom! A second white light jetted out, and the werewolf cried out miserably as it flew back again! Like last time, it slammed into the same wall.

Rumble… In the end, the wall was unable to bear such an impact and it loudly toppled over.

“Huff… Huff…” Under sand and stone, Versailles braced his knee, getting ready stand up with his brimming heart of mad anger. But in less than half a second, he obediently raised both his hands up.

A strong, forceful hand was pressing down on the top of his head.

“Give me a satisfying answer.”

Humiliation! Versailles tightly clenched his snow-white fangs, and white steam puffed out from between the gaps of his teeth. In the darkness it was still dimly visible. Eventually, he gritted out, “In five days, Central Park, Belvedere Castle, Half Moon Marquis Savidean VII, the announcement feast of the Holy War.”

As before, Xu Yangyi didn’t pull his hand back. “Does that mean I’m invited?”

“...Yes…” Versailles’s fangs audibly gnashed.

“Why?”