The Silversword Gang’s headquarters was in the Purple Sun District. Though Jiang Chen had no intention of killing everyone there, his frustrations would be unrelieved if he departed now.
Therefore, he wanted to go to the gang’s headquarters to cause them some more trouble. Even if he couldn’t eradicate it totally, he wanted to teach the gangsters a lesson they wouldn’t soon forget.
The Silversword Gang was the lowest of the low.
It was trivial for someone of his abilities to sneak into the Purple Light District. Actually finding the headquarters in question was much harder–or rather, it would’ve been in peacetime. Since the gang had received such alarming news just recently, experts streamed out without cease.
That made it impossible to miss.
Jiang Chen quickly locked onto a reasonably hidden manor that served as the gang’s hideout. He swept the outside momentarily before deciding to take a blunter approach.
Raising a hand, he produced a magnetic mountain that instantly expanded to its full size. It crashed down on the huge manor in a burst of golden light.
His technique lacked finesse, but was unquestionably effective.
The impact of the mountain created a colossal crater in the middle of the manor. Jiang Chen wasn’t done though. He lifted the magnetic mountain and smashed down three more times.
Each blow was fiercer than the last.
When the Silversword Gang reacted, the attacks were already done. Half of the manor had been reduced to rubble. The gang’s hideout had been utterly ruined. There were pained shrieks and wails from all over.
Jiang Chen glared down at the gang’s headquarters from above, obviously bent on wrecking the place.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoos.h.!.+
A dozen experts flew out from the Silversword Gang’s headquarters, all of them uniformly empyrean. From their appearances, they were obviously all quite capable.
“Who is it?”
“Who dares intrude and misbehave on Warmspring Island?”
“Did you do this, kid?!”
“It’s him! He killed Zhou Yue and the others!”
“You came to your own demise, kid!”
Jiang Chen considered the experts coldly. After a single sweep, he noted that none were advanced empyrean experts. The strongest was sixth level empyrean, alongside four other mid empyrean experts. The rest were only initial empyrean realm.
He would’ve been very tense at the encirclement if he were an ordinary fourth level empyrean cultivator. In fact, it would have been severely troublesome for him.
However, Jiang Chen was completely unconcerned with his safety against these opponents. All of them added together wouldn’t necessarily be stronger than Xiahou Zong had been.
Though Xiahou Zong had only been fifth level empyrean realm, he’d been better at fighting than even peak sixth level empyrean experts.
After cutting Xiahou Zong down in that fateful battle, Jiang Chen’s combat instincts had been perfectly honed. These guys before him presented no threat whatsoever.
“Get your boss to come out.” Jiang Chen directed an icy look around the crowd. “You lot are too weak to fight me. If you don’t want to die, then get the h.e.l.l out of the away.”
“You’re crazy, kid!”
“Come on, everyone. Let’s kill him together!”
Clearly, Jiang Chen’s arrogance had angered the Silversword executives. The sixth level empyrean cultivator frowned and stopped his overexcited colleagues in their tracks.
He gave Jiang Chen the once-over. “Who are you really, friend? To cause trouble on Warmspring Island… don’t you think your methods excessive?”
Jiang Chen chuckled. “Excessive? Am I supposed to let you rob me and make me your slave? I suppose only you guys are allowed to take advantage of others, in your logic.” His tone chilled. “Listen up, boss of the Silversword Gang. If you don’t come out in ten breaths, I’ll make mincemeat of everyone else here.”
Killing intent blasted forth from his pores.
“Hold on!” A forceful voice boomed from within the manor. A figure in faded silver swept out into the air like a tornado.
The man who’d come out was an expressionless, middle-aged cultivator. He had a few wisps of beard, but nothing particularly lush. His most unique characteristic was his eyes, which were almost entirely sunken into his eye sockets. His features actually imparted the air of an immortal about him.
“Are you the boss of the Silversword Gang?” Jiang Chen considered the man with some indifference. His cultivation level was quite strong, as was his aura.
“Correct. Your impudence despite knowing our name means that you believe we are below you, yes? Name yourself. Let’s see we can afford to offend you.” The head of the Silversword Gang was no slouch.
A faction able to take root on a place like Warmspring Island and perpetuate so many evil deeds was a faction to be wary of.
Jiang Chen smiled coolly. “My name? I am the young genius Xiahou Jie, of Eternal Divine Nation’s House Xiahou!”
He had completely made that name up out of nowhere. He only knew of three people from House Xiahou: the three geniuses who’d died at his hand, Zong, Jing, and Xi. He hadn’t even bothered to memorize the patriarch’s name.
House Xiahou?
Hearing the name made the Silversword Gang conflicted. Had they encountered someone they couldn’t deal with?
“Proof?” The boss of the gang pressed flatly.
Jiang Chen produced an ident.i.ty token from House Xiahou with a flourish. He had obtained it after slaying Xiahou Jing and had used it once before too.
Borrowing House Xiahou’s name to blacken their name via unsavory acts was a good strategy. It couldn’t deliver a lethal blow to House Xiahou, but it could nauseate the house’s members.
The Silversword Gang began to believe Jiang Chen’s claims after seeing the identification. It was impossible to forge tokens like that. Had the gang really angered someone it shouldn’t have?
“Boss, Elder, don’t listen to that kid prattle on. You can get a token like that anywhere off the street. He’s just bluffing and trying to scare you!” Someone was unsatisfied with the evidence.
Jiang Chen cackled menacingly. His enemy’s dissatisfaction was an excuse for him to launch a fresh a.s.sault.
A hand seal revealed the Heavenly Chalice Sword Formation hidden within the clouds. Countless beams of aureate light burst forth, raining forth death and destruction upon the crowd below.
Whoosh whoosh whoos.h.!.+
There was another wave of ghastly shrieking amid the blades’ carnage.
“This isn’t good! We fell for his trick!” The gang boss hadn’t expected Jiang Chen to be so decisive.
He was furious about the loss of so many subordinates. “Surround him and take him down,” he roared. “No matter where he comes from, he needs to pay for killing our brothers! Get him!”
That was much easier said than done, however.
Jiang Chen’s magnetic golden mountain and incredible speed meant that the gang’s numbers served solely to give him opportunities for counterattack. It was more satisfactory to kill multiple enemies at once.
The boss was in great distress after witnessing the continuing deaths of his men. He gritted his teeth, then charged at Jiang Chen with as much ferocity as he could muster.
“Are you trying to uproot the Silversword Gang, you thief?” it was one of the worst things in the world to see one’s own underlings die in front of oneself.
The heads of chives could regrow once cut off; not so with the heads of men. Loyal and competent men especially were a rarity in this day and age. Jiang Chen’s ident.i.ty was no longer in consideration. The boss was half-crazed from what the young man was doing to his a.s.sets.
“Kill him! Whoever succeeds will be rewarded with a hundred million sky spirit stones!” The Silversword Gang boss was willing to pay dearly to remove his immediate problem.
Unfortunately, the run-of-the-mill cultivator found it nearly impossible to pose any danger to the one who’d defeated Xiahou Zong.
Even the boss of the Silversword Gang couldn’t rival Jiang Chen in terms of speed, despite his seventh level empyrean realm cultivation. He got very close at times, but Jiang Chen was always able to evade with the cleverest of dodges.
Furthermore, the young would use the window to cut down another swathe of men
This method of fighting was almost shameless, but the Silversword Gang was beaten into helpless submission.
The boss of the gang felt his heart bleed when he saw his men dying around him. “You b.a.s.t.a.r.d,” he roared with red eyes, “the Silversword Gang swears vengeance forevermore!”
A vicious declaration, but one that had minimal effect on Jiang Chen. He wasn’t going to stop killing just because of an empty threat.
The gang’s lack of resources showed itself here.
A house or sect with some history would’ve had a protective formation around its headquarters. This wasn’t the case for the Silversword Gang, to its unfortunate detriment.
“Enough!” The boss recovered a bit of his reason. He knew that if things were allowed to go on, his elite subordinates would be all cut down.
“Who are you, really? Among House Xiahou’s younger generation, even Xiahou Zong would not catch us so unawares.” The boss was no fool. He could see the terrifying ability of his opponent after fighting for a while.
It was unrealistic to believe that any old genius from House Xiahou could pull off such a stunt. There had to be something more going on.
If Xiahou Zong were here personally, he would eat the loss. After all, the young genius was famous everywhere – one of the top geniuses in Myriad Abyss.
But according to their sources, Xiahou Zong had died in a tournament of geniuses back in Eternal Divine Nation. The young man purporting to be from House Xiahou was quite suspicious. Was he an ancient thing from House Xiahou, with merely a youthful appearance?