The door shut behind the demon hunter, the servants outside just bowed and looked as the expert jumped into the air. A big black sword appeared out of thin air under his feet and then he took off into the clouds, making the people watching envious of this amount of power. The three Patriarchs were left in the cabin in distress as the amount they were thinking was about half of what the man was asking for.
"Damn... this man might be even worse than the Zhang Clan leader... and he wants it upfront? What if he fails, how will we get our spirit stones back?"
"He didn't look like he would take the job otherwise..."
"Luckily we don't need to use only spirit stones for it..."
They huddled up, they needed to split the expense three ways and none of them wanted to pay more than they had to. They got their accountants on the job, this was an amount that they could stomach somehow but if the man failed they would be finished. If they cleaned up most of their inventory they could gather most of it, at least they only needed to give him the first part upfront, the rest could be gathered later.
"Hope both of them kill each other!"
They grumbled to themselves, in reality, they could somehow recover from the losses if they just worked with the Zhang Clan normally. They would not earn as much as before, but not like they would end up poor. They would still be wealthy, but their pride wouldn't allow them to work it out with the other party, they would rather risk it all and come out on top than cower in fear below the Zhang family.
While the three families were scattering to gather all the resources the demon hunter flew into town. He used his Wei Hung persona to move around town and discovered various demonic artifacts around the city. They were mostly low-level mortal weapons, probably the only thing these types of clans could get.
'Still, they got to some of the hired help... or they already had them in the bag from the start...'
This was a new city they were now running, they needed the help of the locals for various tasks. It wouldn't be surprising if some of the servants and workers had ties to one of the three larger families. Maybe they were in debt, a promise of lowering that would probably make them do this in a heartbeat.
'Not like these people feel very thankful to my clan just yet... have to give him some time...'
He didn't blame the ignorant masses that much, things just worked like that here. That didn't mean that he wouldn't punish anyone if they were caught doing it. He would give the people that helped the three families one more chance, after his little act that was about to happen he would take off the training wheels.
'If I was a real demon hunter I might have even believed these people.'
Without doing much research Zhang Dong could fit a demonic cultivator template. He went missing from the clan for ten long years. He returned with some strange cultivation method that made him insanely more powerful than others. He also was managing to burst through realms like crazy being now in the great circle only after two years.
Demonic cultivators were known for sucking away the lifeforce of other cultivators which prompted them to mostly have a higher cultivation realm than your regular cultivator. The downsides to these types of methods were, first the body count left, then the practitioner's psychological problems. The demonic energies would corrupt their very being and soul, making them act like psychopaths that didn't care about anyone but themselves.
Zhang Dong was also rarely seen, this was due to him spending times cooped up in his crafting abode. When he actually decided to go out, he used a disguise like he was using now. So he no one really knew what he was up to these days, but not like other Patriarchal types of cultivators were very social either.
'Okay, let me get this over with.'
He removed all of the demonic artifacts that were placed around the city, then went back to the meeting spot after the day had passed. The three family heads were waiting for him, each one of them having a spatial ring with various treasures in them. Matt counted about sixty thousand in low grade spirit stones, the rest were other various materials like spirit herbs, metals and beast cores.
"We will need some time to gather more assets, I'm sure after Senior defeats that foul demonic cultivator, we will have everything ready for you!"
One of the men mentioned while handing over his clan's spatial ring, his hand quivering as he was parting with the fortune.
"Hm... I'll count it later... should be enough in here as a down-payment, but don't forget to gather the rest after the deed is done!"
The men nodded, they weren't planning on cheating the man they were far too afraid of his power to even try that. They were curious how the demon hunter would handle this, would he lure the Zhang Clan Patriarch out. Maybe he would wait for him to leave, he probably would be going back to Spirit Spring City sooner or later. They all thought that such an expert had to have his ways of taking care of high profile targets like this.
They looked as he rose up from the ground on his black sword and just flew back towards Moonlight City. The three looked at each other, wondering if he would use some kind of disguise to hide, he wouldn't just go and attack him outright, now would he?
Little did they know that Zhang Dong was the demon hunter, and he was planning to implicate them in the hit.
'Well, time to get this show on the road.'
The three clan heads were still in the forest, returning from the meeting place at the log cabin. Suddenly they could hear a booming voice, this voice was familiar as it belonged to the man that they just hired. He was shouting while using his Qi to make his voice travel all around the area of the city and it even reached them all the way back here.
"Zhang Dong come out! I know who you are, it's no use hiding!"
Everyone looked up into the sky and stopped anything that they were doing. They spotted an angry-looking cultivator in a black robe hovering right above Moonlight City. He was clearly here to cause trouble and apparently he was after the Zhang Clan head.
"I know that you are a foul demonic cultivator, the Situ Clan, Xing Clan and the Kuan Clan have provided me irrefutable evidence! You must be cleansed by this Lei Ying-lo!"
The Moonlight City residence started whispering among each other, they heard the man's name and instantly knew that the name belonged to a famous demon hunter.
"C-could it be true?... but wait... this sounds fishy..."
"Yeah... would those three families even tell the truth..."
"Sounds like a hoax!"
The people didn't trust those three clans one bit, there was far to much shady stuff around those three clans. While the people were whispering, the man on the flying sword looked down as if he could hear what they were talking about.
"What? You don't believe me? Why would those three established families lie to me? What could they possibly gain from this? Not like they are losing bountiful amounts of spirit stones due to the new laws or anything like that... Yes, no reason at all!"
The citizens looked at each other, their brows twitching after the man continued to talk. Was he here to fight the Zhang Clan Patriarch or talk badly about the three families. He was also contradicting himself, speaking that the three clans were good people and then mentioning a good reason why they would want to kill Zhang Dong.
"They clearly hired him to kill the Zhang Clan Patriarch... but what a strange fellow..."
The people whispered some more, the whole thing was quite odd.
"Now, Zhang Dong come out from your hiding place and let our fists do the talking! I'll see for myself if you are a demonic cultivator during out battle, you won't be able to hide your foul energies from this Lei Yinglo!"
More people started gathering, a lot of people from the Police force were dispatched but they were sweating bullets as they knew that they stood no chance against this powerful uncle. Zhang Zhi was also moving towards that area, he had to protect the good name of his patriarch but before he could speak out he heard Zhang Dong's voice instead.
"Oh, why isn't it the famous demon hunter, I'm quite intrigued that those three fools got you to agree to this... But if it's a battle that you want, then a battle you will have!"
The voice was coming out of the old Cheng Clan main building, the Zhang Clan leader was probably somewhere in it but people couldn't really see him.
"Patriarch, you mustn't leave this to me!"
Zhang Zhi shouted out, he wanted to at least face this man in battle first even if he would die the Patriarch could perhaps see the man's fighting style, this could lead to a win later on when he faced him.
"No need! What kind of person would I be if I let one of my junior members fight my battles for me?"
"Demon hunter, face me behind the mountains in the East, we can't get the city people involved in our fight, there would be massive casualties!"
"Promise me this fellow Daoist, if I lose you will leave my Zhang Clan alone and this city as well, they have suffered enough!"
Zhang Zhi got denied and Zhang Dong scored a couple of points with the public as he appeared to be worried about their well being. It was a given if two top core formation experts fought above a large city like this, there would be casualties and destruction.
Zhang Dong's voice that everyone was hearing was of course done with a speaker type treasure. He was holding on to the microphone while being in his demon hunter persona. No one could really see what he was doing, he just covered his mouth with his hand and spoke into the little treasure that produced the sound. The speaker was placed in a good spot and Zhang Kuo was guarding it, making sure that the plan doesn't get discovered by other people.
"Very well, you have my word. I'm only here for demonic cultivators."
Soon, Lei Yinglo agreed and headed over behind those mountains leaving the city airspace. Then a sudden boom of thunder could be heard followed by a flash of light up in the sky. The people turned to it out of instinct, they saw the Zhang Clan Patriarch hovering up in the sky, golden lightning shooting out of his body as he also flew towards those mountains.
Matt used an old magic trick, kicking up a fuss at one spot. While everyone was trying to find the source of the noise he quickly changed his appearance while being above the clouds where no one could see him. He then used his movement technique to get into that spot in a flash, making it seem as if he took off from the old Cheng Clan main building.
Everyone heard the exchange, the three families were in distress as the cat was out of the bag and everything depended on that blasted demon hunter now. Why did he have to tell everyone that they were the ones that provided that evidence? It was obvious that they just wanted to use that as an excuse to kill this man off.
Suddenly a loud booming sound could be heard, some strange beams of light rose up into the air as people could feel an overbearing aura flying their way.
"Oh no, they are fighting... what strength!"
"Can the Zhang Patriarch win? That Demon hunter is really famous..."
"What are those three clan's planning... hope Senior Dong wins!"
While the people were talking among each other, Matt was punching some boulders into dust. He was kicking up a storm, shouting out loudly. He hoped that his mock battle with himself would come off as realistic, otherwise he might get embarrassed if his super sneaky scheme came to light.
'Think I need to work on my lines, they were quite corny...also how long should I keep this up...'