In a bustling valley filled with mercenaries, Feng stood with a jade box in hand, presenting the mission item towards the lady behind the counter. It was the same emo looking woman from the last time Feng was in the valley; her name seemed to be Grace.
"Here's the mission item, what's my reward?"
"Your rewards are as follows; Free ship pass to the Wasteland Continent and thirty thousand gold coins."
"Nice, I was planning to head to that wasteland continent anyway."
"Uhm, mister Feng, the ship pass is only for one."
Grace says noticing Nosferatu, Shangren Zhifang, and Eshu behind him.
"Damn!"
"Well, that is, if you form a mercenary group or guild of your own."
"Oh, I'll do that then."
"To form a group it costs, twenty thousand gold coins, and to form a guild it costs fifty thousand gold coins."
Hearing the prices, Feng was stunned, but thank goodness he was not the same poor sap that he was. The WI gave him quite a bit of money to spend; ten million gold coins, ten freaking million!
Upon remembering the amount, he couldn't help but inwardly praise the Wolf Immortal as the richest tycoon in this Dark Continent.
. . .
In a secluded room within a giant crystal palace, the Wolf Immortal, who was watching the animes Feng gave him, suddenly sneezed.
"Heh, someone must be thinking good about me!"
If anyone else here was, they would think; 'Isn't it the other way around?'
. . .
"I choose to form a mercenary guild," Feng answered after a quick bout of contemplation.
"Excellent, what will the name of this guild be?"
"I shall name it the Purple Midnight Guild (hehe search the English meaning of Zise Wuye)."
"Any members for now?"
"Yes, Lin Feng, Eshu Eshu, Nosferatu Bloodsucker, and Shangren Zhifang."
Upon hearing the last two names, Grace was slightly surprised. After all, Nosferatu and Shangren Zhifang were extremely infamous, even more so for Shangren Zhifang.
"Yes, you are good to go now."
She registered them with a weird face and handed the rewards over.
"Master, where to next?"
"To the Wolf Immortal's Palace."
"But that place is freaking far."
"… Oh, umm Zhifang, do you have any speed-type magic treasures?"
"Oh yeah, lemme just look for it."
The rotund youth then pushed his fat fingers into the air, appearing to have plunged his hand into a different space entirely.
He shook his hand for a while before finally pulling the treasure out. It was a silver-gold carriage as small as a human palm; the carriage was drawn by two mechanical-looking golden horses.
"Expand!"
With a command from Shangren Zhifang, the tiny carriage expanded to be able to fit the four of them. Seeing this, Feng's eyes gleamed with a weird light, suddenly out of nowhere, two paintbrushes appeared in his hand. With a few swishes of the brushes, he painted a magnificent scene.
Seven youths standing under the cover of a purple night and the starry sky, the youth leading had three heads and six arms, a large drum in front of him and lightning snakes dancing around him, the other six figures had similar magnificent scenarios around their bodies. The youth mentioned had a familiar appearance to the person painting, the spectators behind saw this and nodded, but who were the other figures?
At the bottom of the painting, bold words appeared and formed;
"PURPLE MIDNIGHT MERCENARIES,"
Perhaps the only one of the people gathered behind Feng would get the meaning of this image. Only he would recognize the remaining six people; that person was Shangren Zhifang. It was only him who knew all those people were through his contacts.
Although the rest didn't know the other people, they saw the vague imprint of runes on Feng's painting; it seemed that he set up a runic formation hidden beneath the painting.
Feng paused for a bit and looked at one of the people that he painted with a vacant expression. A youth that looked slightly younger than Feng himself, the youth had red hair and a weird grin on his face, in his palm, a cluster of green flames lay. And around his body Phoenixes of fire and sprites of flame flew.
After a while, he finally stopped staring at the youth he painted. He placed the brushes and the palette back into god-knows-where and stepped into the carriage. As if on cue, the others followed him in, Shangren Zhifang sat in the seat of the driver.
Nosferatu tilted up a bit and lay down on the ceiling of the carriage, one would naturally think of the movies which said vampires slept on ceilings, upside down. It seemed that was all true.
Eshu sat in the back seat with Feng by his side, they both closed their eyes in contemplation, it was unclear whether Eshu picked that habit up from Feng.
With a yank of the reins, the mechanical horses moved forward furiously.
. . .
On Feng's painting, the others seemed to have missed one more image that only the painter would know was there. Up in the air of the painting, the image of a middle-aged Chinese man was there; the man was looking down on the seven youths and smiled contentedly.
. . .
"Ha!"
"Kill them!"
"Seize their treasures, gold, and ladies!"
Numerous yells were heard, ringing out through the small canyon. None of them had any good intentions.
"Please, we will surrender everything to you!"
"Kekekeke, more like it. Go get everything out now!"
A man with a nasty scar that ran from his forehead down to his chin spoke. He seemed to be the leader of these bandits.
"Hehe boss, it seems that our Reckless Bandits will have quite a good feast tonight."
A skinny dude by the side of this boss fellow spoke, resulting in cheers of the many bandits.
Finally, the captive finally returned with a large treasure chest and five voluptuous ladies of different races. Some were even half-beast.
Seeing this, all the bandits licked their lips in delight. They thought they had gotten a good target. But sadly they were very wrong, not only were they not the predators, they were actually the prey.
In a nearby tree, black eyes flitted back and forth, assessing the bandits.