Chapter 415: Conclusion

Chapter 415: Chapter 415: Conclusion

A disciple of the Tongzi Tan was run through with a longspear.

The five Bingfeng disciples formed up and charged toward another group of Tongzi Tan disciples who had gathered together.

These men had been poisoned by Bai Mo. Unable to circulate their Spiritual Qi, their meridians bulged beneath their skin, causing them unbearable pain.

Knowing there was no escape, their savage nature was finally unleashed.

"Where are my brothers!?"

"Charge with me! Kill every last one of these Xuandao Sect dogs! Even if we die, we’ll take a pound of their flesh and repay the Altar for raising us!"

The five Bingfeng disciples glanced around. At least twenty more disciples of the Tongzi Tan were crawling out from below.

It was impossible to say how many men they had stationed down there.

"Truly insidious."

A Bingfeng disciple snorted and pointed his longspear forward.

"Charge!"

The five charged forward in perfect sync.

None of them had reached Foundation Establishment. Now, stripped of their Spiritual Qi, the Tongzi Tan cultivators were even less of a match for the Bingfeng disciples.

Witnessing the one-sided slaughter below...

Brother Zhu ticked off on his fingers.

"Brother Zheng unleashed the lightning, Brother Bai laid the poison, I fired a few surprise shots, and the Bingfeng disciples all charged in." 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

"Tsk, tsk. Everyone pitched in, so there’s plenty of credit to go around."

"As for how to phrase it nicely to get a better evaluation from the Foreign Affairs Hall... we’ll have to count on you, Brother Zheng. I hear you’re an old hand at this sort of thing."

Brother Zheng’s gaze remained fixed below.

When he saw the cultivator exuding the aura of the Core Formation realm finally perish, entangled in the thunder poison, he silently breathed a sigh of relief.

"The battle isn’t over. How can you be so careless?"

"Brother Zhu, you’re getting ahead of yourself again."

Though his words were calm, Brother Zheng sighed internally.

’We even had to use the Yin-Devouring Thunder Poison. No matter how I spin this for the Foreign Affairs Hall, the evaluation won’t be good.’

As they spoke, a few squelching sounds came from below.

Another dozen or so cultivators crawled out, caked in mud and water.

Bai Mo was very familiar with the tall figure in the lead.

The condition of this dozen-odd men was even better than that of the other Tongzi Tan disciples.

A faint light glowed on their skin, washing away the filth.

The only strange thing was that all these men were wearing apron-like undergarments, a truly bizarre sight.

"The Holy Water has cleansed our bodies! We have already joined the Altar—there is no retreat!"

One cultivator was ecstatic, reveling in the power that surged endlessly through his body.

His mind filled with a mix of excitement and the terror of this sudden upheaval, he bellowed:

"Brothers! Follow me, break through this encirclement, and find the Sacred Altar! Our path to greatness is at hand!"

THWACK!

Lanshan casually picked up a broken blade and hacked the fanatic to the ground.

"To hell with your damn altar!"

"You don’t even know what crap you were washed in, and you’re going on about a ’Sacred Altar’? What a load of bullshit!"

He ripped the filthy, apron-like undergarment from his body, stripped the outer robe off the corpse of the broken blade’s previous owner, and wrapped it around his waist.

With a sharp snort, the blood and qi in his body began to roil.

Young Master Wei cowered behind him, trembling. The fighting skills he had honed over the past several days were utterly useless here.

A nearby cultivator stomped his foot and yelled.

"Lanshan, everyone in Immortal Arrival City knows your name!"

"It’s incredible how you’ve made a name for yourself, but for people like us, this is our only chance!"

"If you try to stop us, I swear this won’t end well for you!"

Unlike Lanshan and Young Master Wei, who resisted, some of the cultivators had willingly gone along with the Tongzi Tan’s forced "recruitment."

A few others who had been hesitant before were now completely undecided.

Lanshan scoffed.

He looked up at the Flying Ship. With his current eyesight, he easily spotted Bai Mo.

Their eyes met. Bai Mo breathed a sigh of relief and gave a slight nod.

That was all the reassurance Lanshan needed. He turned to the cultivator who was all bark and no bite, the one dead set on siding with the Tongzi Tan.

"See that up there?"

"Everyone says I, Lanshan, only got where I am by latching onto a Pill Master. Well, that Pill Master you’re all talking about? He’s right up there!"

"So, you tell me. Do you really think I can let you walk away!?"

As he finished, he let out a sudden roar and hurled the broken blade in his hand.

The broken blade, glinting with a deadly white light, flew straight for the man’s face.

The cultivator, terrified, stumbled back a step. He flailed his arms and managed to slap the flat of the blade with his wrist, knocking it aside.

Before he could even catch his breath, his vision blurred as a powerful gust of wind rushed toward him.

Lanshan had already closed the distance, his powerful physique radiating an oppressive aura.

"Hah!"

With a low shout, he shot out a large hand.

Lanshan smashed right through the man’s block, grabbed him by the neck, and slammed him into the ground with brutal force.

A sickening CRACK echoed from the cultivator’s spine. He convulsed for a moment, then went still.

He wasn’t dead, but he was only hanging on by a thread.

Only then did Lanshan straighten up, his fierce eyes sweeping over the remaining cultivators.

"I’d like to see anyone else try to move..."

The others seemed to only now recall that this man was a ruthless killer who’d made his name in the Celestial Barrier Mountain.

He was no gentle soul.

And so, the crowd fell silent.

Another hour passed. The Bingfeng disciples had wiped out all the Tongzi Tan cultivators, leaving only two alive for questioning.

The Flying Ship descended.

By now, Lanshan and Young Master Wei had changed into new clothes, all of which had been stripped from the dead.

It was better than nothing.

When Young Master Wei saw Bai Mo arrive, he nearly burst into tears.

"It’s a miracle we were saved! Shopkeeper Bai, I owe you yet again..."

When they’d fallen into the bandits’ den, he didn’t know what would have become of him if Lanshan hadn’t been there to protect him.

Bai Mo comforted him.

"Since you’ve survived a great disaster, good fortune is sure to follow."

"Instructor Sun isn’t dead either. He’s waiting for you back in the city!"

"Really!?"

Young Master Wei was overjoyed.

After calming him down, Bai Mo finally turned to Lanshan.

"You okay?"

Lanshan shook his head.

"I was abducted, sure, but I didn’t exactly lose out. In fact, that Holy Water purification gave me quite a few benefits."

"I just don’t know what that stuff was. More importantly, now that I’ve been cleansed by their Holy Water, will the Xuandao Sect treat me like one of those damned Tongzi Tan members?"

Bai Mo shook his head.

"Don’t worry, that won’t happen."

Brother Zheng walked over.

"These two are your friends, Brother Bai?"

Bai Mo nodded.

"They are. Thankfully, they’re alright."

Brother Zheng said, "Don’t worry. That Holy Water is nothing special. If we weren’t missing the raw materials, our sect could mix up a batch ourselves."

"You lot won’t be considered heretics."

"When this is all over, you can all go home to your wives and children..."

He started ordering the other cultivators around, telling them to dig up the corpses of the Tongzi Tan members.

’A dose of Yin-Devouring Thunder Poison was worth 400,000 Spirit Stones at the Foreign Affairs Hall. It’s impossible to recoup the full cost, but looting their bodies for valuables might make up for some of it. At the very least, it will look better when I report to the Foreign Affairs Hall.’

...

At dawn, after the commotion had died down, the few old cultivators from before steered their fishing boat cautiously toward the shore.

They were shocked to see that the riverbank had collapsed and sunk by more than ten feet.

Bai Mo and Lanshan happened to be talking on the bank. When they saw the boat, Bai Mo gave the men a reassuring look.

Lanshan sighed. "You rarely get to come back, Shopkeeper Bai, and then something like this happens. It’s just..."

Bai Mo was unconcerned.

"It’s no trouble. Eliminating these Tongzi Tan cultivators is a meritorious deed in itself."

"It’s just that the report to the Foreign Affairs Hall will be a hassle. I won’t have a moment’s peace."

"Will this affect your schedule for returning to the sect?" Lanshan asked.

"No, the date is the same. About a month from now."

The old cultivators, carefully docking their boat, overheard the conversation.

They exchanged a glance.

’So, this cultivator from the Xuandao Sect... he’s actually the one Lanshan latched onto?’