Chapter 1635: Killing Zhan Zhuo
Lin Huang tried his best to milk Zhan Zhuo for any information regarding the Raiders. Zhan Zhuo seemed to have given up as well and answered as best as he could.
However, Lin Huang soon realized that what Zhan Zhuo told him did not get to the core of the Raiders. Clearly, he was restricted by authorization and only had access to superficial information.
He only knew the codenames of the four people he had collaborated with. As for the rest, he did not know anything more.
“Tell me about the mission you were given this time. Also, why did you attack Buried Heaven and Death Sickle?” Seeing that he was not able to gain any more information about the Raiders, Lin Huang switched topics and began asking about the details of this recent mission.
“This mission was actually a one-off affair to test the waters. Attempting to kill Buried Heaven and destroying Death Sickle was just something incidental along the way.
“This whole thing came about because previously, someone had a.s.sa.s.sinated powerhouses consecutively on the Heavenly G.o.d Leaderboard. We suspected the individual in question was a traveler.” Zhan Zhuo glanced at Lin Huang at this point. Clearly, he already knew that the one responsible for the killings was Lin Huang, the one standing before him now.
“In the process of investigating this traveler’s ident.i.ty, we came across Death Sickle and inadvertently discovered that Buried Heaven was about to perform unification soon. We felt that it was an opportunity to kill several birds with one stone.
“For one, if we got rid of Buried Heaven and nipped things in the bud, it would be the equivalent of destroying Death Sickle’s chances of elevating to a grade-7 organization. Once Death Sickle elevated to grade-7, there would be a significant increase of difficulty in many of the missions targeting them.
“For another, we discovered that you were the one who killed the powerhouses on the Heavenly G.o.d Leaderboard previously. Furthermore, you’re close to Buried Heaven. If he died, you would lose your backing, which would make it easier for us to move against you.
“Thirdly, we wanted to weaken Death Sickle and decrease their popularity. This would benefit us in our covert scheme to take over Death Sickle in the future.”
“For you to accurately obtain Buried Heaven’s unification coordinates, it ought to have been one of the Blood Sickle members from Death Sickle who leaked the information, right? Who exactly was your informant?!” Lin Huang continued to pursue the matter.
“This, I don’t know. However, I suspect that the coordinates being leaked has something to do with Babble. He might very well have used some sort of technique on one of the Blood Sickle members. I’m not sure exactly what he did.”
“So you found out about my ident.i.ty through the Blood Sickle authorization, including the fact that I accepted Death Sickle’s missions anonymously to kill those fellows on the Heavenly G.o.d Leaderboard.” Lin Huang had actually long since suspected that his ident.i.ty had already been exposed. However, he had not expected that Zhan Zhuo would verify this.
“Yes. It was only after discovering your ident.i.ty that we began to suspect you might be a traveler. However, it was merely an unconfirmed suspicion.
“Our initial plan was to kill Buried Heaven first and move against you after that.”
“Didn’t you intend to confirm my ident.i.ty as a traveler first, then directly attack me?” Lin Huang was rather confused.
“There ‘s no need for any confirmation.” Xhan Zhuo shook his head. “If you were truly a traveler and we disposed of you right away, that would be equivalent to eradicating any future problems. If you weren’t a traveler, we’d just be killing a Heavenly G.o.d by mistake. As far as we’re concerned, we’d rather kill the wrong person than let the chance slip by!”
“You really treat lives like nothing at all.” Lin Huang could not help sneering when he heard that.
“Why did you murder Old Sun then?” Lin Huang raised a new point of doubt.
“I’m not sure exactly what mission Babble was entrusted with. Sun Zhan was no threat to us at all. I think Babble might have killed him because he was alone and an easy target. Naturally, we can’t rule out the possibility that Sun Zhan was the spy that Babble set up. If so, he was killed to silence him.”
Buried Heaven was simmering with rage at this point.
Since they had both been combat cultivators, he and Sun Zhan had gotten along very well all this time and had often sparred with each other. It could even be said that out of the seven Blood Sickles, Sun Zhan had been the one closest to him.
In reality, Sun Zhan’s death was what had upset Buried Heaven the most, even more so than being covertly attacked.
“Based on what you’ve said, your main target this time was actually me. So how far did your investigations go, and what did you find out?” Lin Huang glanced at Zhan Guang; he did not mind that the man was standing on the sidelines and listening to what was being said.
“We know everything that a Blood Sickle member of Death Sickle would know. We know that you have two ident.i.ties in Death Sickle—one is Xiu Mu, and the other is Xie Lin. We also know that you’re actually a human. Your real name is Lin Huang, and you come from an unknown gravel world.
“We suspected that you were most probably a traveler because the rate of your combat strength elevation is just too astounding. Furthermore, the abilities you’ve displayed are also very unusual. However, all along, there hasn’t been enough evidence to prove this.
“Even when you severed my hand during Buried Heaven’s unification, at the time, I merely thought that you had a trump card left to you by an Almighty. I didn’t think you were using your true ability.
“It wasn’t until I tricked you into admitting it in the palace earlier that I was able to officially confirm that you’re a traveler.”
“So the others don’t know the latest news?” Lin Huang raised his brows at this point.
Zhan Zhuo heard the underlying killing intent concealed in Lin Huang’s words. “Honestly, it doesn’t matter whether we verify your ident.i.ty or not. When we found your real ident.i.ty information on Death Sickle, you were already put on the Raiders’ list of individuals who were marked for death.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a reincarnated being, a traveler, the chosen one, the reincarnation of an Almighty, or something else entirely. It won’t change the fact that you’re already on the death list.”
“Since I’m your target and you’ve already discovered my ident.i.ty, why didn’t you attack me directly?” Lin Huang voiced out the biggest point of confusion he had up to this point.
“We didn’t know your coordinates. Someone with Blood Sickle authorization wiped out your mailing addresses completely. Even your sender information was deleted as well. We couldn’t find out who the senders were.
“That’s why we changed our target to Buried Heaven instead. We thought we’d kill him first, then wait for you to show yourself.”
“I was the one who deleted your mailing information and sender information,” Buried Heaven could not help speaking up at this point, “Not long after I elevated to ninth-rank heavenly G.o.d-level, a few of the Blood Sickle members gave me Death Sickle’s Blood Sickle-level authorization access. Very few of the Blood Sickle members knew about this.
“I’ve been continuously deleting your mailing address and sender information because one of the Blood Sickle members is rather biased against humans. He complained about your hidden ident.i.ty during meetings more than once. I was worried that he’d stir up trouble for you,” Buried Heaven explained.
“No wonder I had to fill in my address and contact number every time I accepted missions. I thought Death Sickle’s forum deleted them automatically for confidentiality purposes. I figured everyone had to do the same…” This was something Lin Huang had not expected.
Buried Heaven’s actions had certainly protected Lin Huang and the Sword Alliance, but it had brought disaster upon himself as well as Death Sickle.
Lin Huang also realized that Death Sickle had indeed taken the fall for him.
After Lin Huang had asked Zhan Zhuo almost everything that he wanted to know, Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang took turns to interrogate him.
Zhan Zhuo was also very much aware of the situation he was in and answered everything that he could.
He cooperated with them also because he wanted a chance to stay alive.
After Zhan Guang finished his interrogation, he looked at Lin Huang.
“Young Lin, will you let us handle Zhan Zhuo? He belongs to the Combat G.o.d Temple, after all. We can compensate you accordingly.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to hand him over to you alive.” Lin Huang looked at Zhan Guang, his expression very serious. “But if you bring him back to the Combat G.o.d Temple, you’ll only bring disaster upon yourselves.
“The Raiders would never allow any of their members to be captured alive.
“You heard it yourself earlier. There are at least seven Raiders in this great world we’re in right now. Each of them possesses abilities that are on par with Zhan Zhuo; in fact, they’re even more powerful. Not only that, there’s at least one middle-rank Lord.”
Zhan Guang’s lips moved, but in the end, he did not raise any objections.
Indeed, he had not thoroughly thought things through earlier. He felt that since Zhan Zhuo was a member of the Combat G.o.d Temple, it only made sense that the Combat G.o.d Temple should handle the matter.
Lin Huang’s a.n.a.lysis made him break out in a cold sweat.
The trouble Zhan Zhuo would bring down upon their heads would far exceed what the Combat G.o.d Temple could handle.
Zhan Guang was not sure if there were any middle-rank Lords left in this great world. However, he knew that there were none in the Combat G.o.d Temple.
All the Raiders had to do was send a middle-rank Lord; they could easily annihilate the entire Combat G.o.d Temple.
Protect the traitor Zhan Zhuo, or protect the Combat G.o.d Temple—Zhan Guang rapidly made his decision.
Seeing that Zhan Guang was not saying anything anymore, Lin Huang smirked and looked at Zhan Zhuo.
“You can’t kill me…”
Zhan Zhuo had not even finished speaking before a blood-red sword gleam sliced across his neck.
An instant later, one generation of the Combat G.o.d Temple’s Lords had his head severed.
A grayish-black stream of light silently escaped from between Zhan Zhuo’s brows and directly penetrated into Lin Huang’s body.
However, Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang did not notice this at all.
“I won’t leave you his corpse either.” Lin Huang’s tone did not sound like he was going to discuss this with Zhan Guang. He put Zhan Zhuo’s corpse and its head into his storage s.p.a.ce. “If someone from the Raiders comes to look for you, tell them that I killed Zhan Zhuo, and I took his body away.”
After seeing to the body, Lin Huang did not bother with any niceties. He looked at Zhan Zhuo’s ancient palace and headed straight for it.
Zhan Zhuo was dead. Naturally, this ancient palace had no owner now.
However, Zhan Guang had no intention of fighting over this. For one, he was certainly no match for Lin Huang. For another, it was Lin Huang who had killed Zhan Zhuo, so it was only fitting that he collected the spoils.
After subduing the ancient palace, Lin Huang did a sweep with Divine Telekinesis and made sure that nothing had been left behind. Only then did he bid farewell to Buried Heaven and Zhan Guang.