The Red Sands bandit lead by Ang Busano and Ang Busheng were part of the seven force of the East Bandit Coalition, and their chief leader was no other than this person, w.a.n.g Feng!!"Nascent Soul realm expert!" Fei Longwei and Wei Shang widened their eyes in disbelief when they saw the aura of the other party as he trod down the slope along with several hundreds other bandit cavalry behind him!
Now, the total number of bandits was almost reaching two thousand!
How could there be so many bandits congregating here? What is going on?
The duo nodded at each other as they retreated back into the village. With the increase number of bandits, they were no longer confident of being able to take them down, not to mention that the new boss that just appeared was a Nascent Soul realm cultivator!
A Core Formation realm cultivator like them fighting against a Nascent Soul realm cultivator? Even if the other party were to stand still and let them attack him all day, the most they could do was sc.r.a.p off all the dead skin on his face like giving a beauty treatment instead!
While they most likely could defeat all the bandits if they use their Ultimate graded weapons, they were not confident of being able to kill every last one of them. If even one of them were to escape then, who knows what that could bring them. After all, their Lord"s command was quite clear for them to follow;
"Kill everyone without a single witness should they are forced to draw upon their weapons!"
As soon as they went back inside, they instructed all the men there to immediately go into hiding with the others in the underground bunker they made before. Initially, most of them were still unwilling to escape, and they would rather die in a fight. But after Fei Longwei slapped them and told them that their dog life was meaningless, and they wouldn"t be able to do sh*t by dying like fools, only to trouble others into burying their useless corpse, did they finally relented and escape with a saddened look.
They were not even given chances to talk back!
"Hey... you don"t have to be so cold on people like that..." Wei Shang said as he scratched his head looking at this partner of his.
With a nonchalant expression, Fei Longwei replied, "I don"t have time to play nice. It"s better they know of the reality beforehand than becoming our dead weights later on. You would eventually learn this to be true yourself and that will already be too late." he said before pointing out, "Look, those two are already in the Golden Core realm while that big guy is a Nascent Soul realm. You honestly think we will be able to fight them while worrying about those villagers" life?"
Wei Shang gave out a long sigh, "I understand okay, I got it!"
The truth was that he knew there was nothing really wrong with what Fei Longwei just did, only that it was a bit extreme. Still, he had to acknowledge that such method was really effective. Had it been him persuading them, it would probably take time and even then there would still be a few hanging around.
He just didn"t have the stone-cold heart to berate others into submission and obedience like what Fei Longwei just did!
"That new guy over there is a Golden Core realm expert too. So we have three of them now..." he said pointing out to another burly figure leading the second regiment of the newly arrived bandit cavalry.
With this, their expression became quite awful.
All in all, they now were facing against two thousand Qi Condensation realm bandits, three Golden Core realm cultivators and one Nascent Soul realm expert! This was a lineup of people akin to going for war!
The question was, do they really need this much power to conquer over a small village like the Spring Blossom village? Were there treasures hidden in the village? Obviously this was not the case as they already explored most of the village when they helped around in the reconstruction process earlier on!
They concluded that the Spring Blossom village was only another generic village like the countless others spread across in the Tian continent!
"We are mistaken! It is highly likely that their intention of taking over this village is not for raid, but as a rallying point for these bandits!" Wei Shang clenched his fists tight when he arrived at this conclusion, and it seems that Fei Longwei also realized the same thing as well!
"En! But why here? What is the point?" Fei Longwei nodded before raising this question.
By the looks of it, the bandits they encountered this time around was not of the common rabble as they were quite organized. From that standpoint, it goes without saying that these bandits were not fools and has a really good agenda for trying to rally in the Spring Blossom village!
After all, if they wanted to make the Spring Blossom village which was a public location on the map as their headquarters, that would be viewed as a direct challenge to the Jiu Emperor governing the Jiu Empire! If that were to be the case, even if they have several other Nascent Soul realm experts in their disposal, they would probably be able to hold out for a few days at most before finding themselves obliterated entirely by the Official Knights of the empire in a single day!
No matter how powerful they were, they couldn"t fight against the might of an entire empire!
Furthermore, the reason they were allowed to roam the vast lands of the Jiu Empire in the first place was not because the empire did not care about their illegal activities, but because their overall existence was insignificant. Moreover, since these bandits had to live in the wilds as they were shunned by the society, they had to defend themselves against wild monsters from time to time, thus reducing the numbers of both parties which was a good thing for the empire without moving a single finger.
For this reason, the empire found it a waste of resources to deal with petty banditry, but if they tried to coalesce into a proper power, the empire would definitely not hesitate to take action and erase them completely!
Knowing this, both Fei Longwei and Wei Shang conjectured that these bandits were there for anything other than making the village their headquarters!
However, the village also did not have anything valuable to warrant such an overwhelming force either!
"Wait a moment... " Fei Longwei seemed to realize something before taking a look around.
"What"s wrong?" Wei Shang asked.
Fei Longwei continued to look around before finally giving a reply, "Unlikely as it is, I think they are trying to use this village to defend themselves from something!"
...
BAMM!! BAMM!!
"Pu!" Ang Busano and Ang Busheng were struck on their stomach, causing them to puke out their innards as their face turned green from pain.
Fast!
Busano and Busheng couldn"t even see the other party making a move!
"Explain yourselves!" w.a.n.g Feng glared at them murderously. While he also has a nasty temper like Ang Busano, he was more clear-headed than the latter. This was because w.a.n.g Feng was not originally a bandit, but one of the elder in the prestigious mountain clan of the Jiu Empire, the w.a.n.g Clan!
He was already more than a hundred years old, but retained his middle age appearance due to his high cultivation level. In the w.a.n.g Clan, he was quite respected among his circle as someone with a lot of experience in the world. Unfortunately, he grew ambitious overtime and found the w.a.n.g Clan to be too restrictive with what he wanted to do.
There was even one occasion where he voiced his opinion publicly to the w.a.n.g Clan of wanting to invade the mountain lands that belonged to the Liu Empire. His reasoning was that their clan was far too great to be limited by the boundaries set by people from not of the mountain!
Of course, he was deeply criticized for trying to start a war and this caused him to become extremely unsatisfied.
The last straw for him was the Red and Blue Concordat between the Jiu and Liu Empire which he viewed it as a total joke. As a result of the treaty, the w.a.n.g Clan found their lands in the mountains to be considerably reduced and this had angered him thoroughly!
In his rage, he barged through the Imperial Palace to meet the previous Jiu Emperor, and with his high cultivation, there was little anyone could do to stop him. The Jiu Emperor listened to his heartfelt complaints until he was finished saying his piece, before rejecting him.
After all, even if the Jiu Emperor understood his reasoning and point of view, the w.a.n.g metal - which was the main reason for the treaty in the first place, was far too important for the stabilization of the Jiu Empire as a whole. Besides, majority of the mountain lands acceded to the Liu Empire in that treaty was not really suitable to live in in the first place, and was why the Jiu Emperor did it.
w.a.n.g Feng"s reasoning of rejecting the treaty was more towards the pride for the w.a.n.g Clan and held no real merits nor advantages in the modern society to help the empire as a whole.
Frustrated that both the Jiu Emperor and the w.a.n.g Clan rejecting him, he left the w.a.n.g Clan entirely, knowing that the only way for him to retake back the mountain lands was for him to take matters into his own hands!
Thus, he rounded up groups of bandits around him over the years under the radar of the empire, hoping for one day of using them to create his own clan by forcefully retaking the mountain lands now owned by the Liu Empire!
It was all going smoothly before he found his East Bandit Coalition force that was made up from seven bandit groups being suddenly attacked left and right by outside forces not belonging to the Jiu Empire! From such a sudden and unsuspecting event, he already lost three of the bandit groups and had to rally the other four groups in order to avoid total extermination!
It was not to say that he was incapable of handling the foreign forces by himself. In fact, he was more than enough to decimate them all. However, this was also an opportunity for him to test the power he acc.u.mulated thus far as the old saying went, "Only through pressure will diamonds began to form."
Additionally, since the attacking forces were foreign for some reason, the empire would never bat an eye if they were to retaliate instead of dispersing!
Therefore, he rallied all the four remaining bandit groups at one point, which was the Spring Blossom village. His intention was to train them the ways of war to see whether they were ready for conquest or not!
With him holding the helm, extermination was unlikely even if this newfound forces of his were subpar in their performance as he could end it anytime he wished!
This was why he was so angry when he saw how two of the bandit groups were somehow chasing and trying to ma.s.sacre chickens as if it had done wrong to their ancestors!
I had dedicated a good portion of my life and effort in recent years to train you all to become fierce and mighty, yet you all are trying to murder weak animals instead!
Was that performance supposed to impress me and others? Or are you all trying to make us into a clown and laughing stock for the world instead?
Screw you!
"We.. t-the chickens are not what they seemed to be! They are monsters with cultivation levels!" Busheng answered and felt a little indignant because this was the second time after his older brother berated him for the same reason. Only this time his older brother was being scolded too.
"...." w.a.n.g Feng had the urge to command his people to slice Busheng into pieces before suppressing his inner demon. Narrowing his eyes, he locked onto the position of one of the said chickens.
Whooshh!!
With a single dash, he appeared almost instantly in front of the chicken. Grabbing the chicken by the neck, he then cast his soul sense!
Wengg!!
Immediately after, his expression changed.
...