He calmly took out a handkerchief to clean his hand after he dropped the body to the ground, his eyes never leaving the elder as he did so.
"Sorry, I was busy. Hello there, my name is Long Di. How may I help you today?"
****
"Little beast, do you know what you've done!?"
"What? Do you mean introducing myself? Should I not have done so? I'll have you know that I was raised right. I mean, I was raised by a conman with neither his knowledge nor consent, but it was still 'right.'"
"What the heck are you on about!? You kill a disciple of the Iron Body Forge Sect! Do you know the ramifications of your actions!?"
"Do you know the ramifications of that grammatical error you just made? The correct tense is 'killed,' not 'kill,' good sir. I don't want to be that guy, but you're just stepping on all my pet peeves today. Like disciple, like master, I guess."
"You—!" The elder held up a quivering finger as he pointed at Long Di, too angry to formulate a response.
"Long Di, please tell me," seeing that the elder was verbally incapacitated at the moment, Shen Dai, the leader and elder who brought the disciples from the Soaring Cloud Immortal Sect, took the chance to ask Long Di a question.
"The disciples I brought over, are they safe? Did you keep them safe like you said you would?"
Worry dotted his features when he saw the extent of the destruction within the relic. When he asked Long Di to keep them safe before, he didn't expect for the request to be acted upon since it should be safe. He only wanted for his disciples to become friends with Long Di as he truly valued him.
However, seeing what happened, he truly did hope that Long Di did keep them safe.
"Your disciples? Oh yeah, I was able to save five and three-quarters of them."
Elder Shen Dai smiled, then frowned when he heard the last part of Long Di's reply, "W-What do you mean by five and three—"
"Master! Don't listen to him, he lied! Look at the state of senior apprentice-brother, Liu Xin!"
For a moment, when Shen Dai heard his disciples' cry, he was happy. That was until he saw them, or more specifically, until he saw disciple Liu Xin.
"M-Master, avenge your disciple!" Liu Xin cried out in indignation.
Shen Dai looked back at Long Di, clearly angered by what he saw. Teacher Weiyuan Yaochuan was happy seeing Shen Dai's miserable situation.
"What is the meaning of this!? Is this what you meant by only saving five and three-quarters of them?" Shen Dai finally asked. The anger he bore rose with every word.
Long Di looked at Liu Xin's situation before commenting. "You don't think it's three-quarters of him, do ya?"
Shen Dai was a bit confused by the question. "Wait, wha—"
"No, no, you… you got a point there," Long Di said, wagging his finger at Elder Shen Dai, causing the latter to twitch in irritation. "I mean, going by that logic, if he were to be completely limbless, then only zero of him would be saved. So if we're going to count the torso and head as part of the equation, it'll be somewhere different. By my calculations, on average, for all six disciples, technically I saved 99.13% of them. If it isn't obvious by now, the absence of Liu Xin's arm over there is the 0.87%."
Shen Dai expertly disregarded Long Di's… calculations and asked the question that was on his mind. "Were you the one who—"
"Don't even bother trying to blame this all on Long Di. If you want to blame someone, then blame your disciples for being nothing but sheep! This young lady simply got a little heavy-handed with the shears is all."
Shen Dai's head snapped to the location of the voice where he saw Yaomu Shou walking towards Long Di with Feng Yu and the others.
The sword she held in her hands earlier was nowhere to be found.
"You! You think simply because you are a part of the Yaomu family you can do whatever you want!?" Shen Dai's face was red with rage.
"And if I do?" Yaomu Shou asked him coldly.
You—!" Shen Dai trembled in anger. If this person wasn't from the Yaomu family, he would have long attacked her but the power backing her was leagues above his own.
Yaomu Shou smirked upon seeing this. "What? You—"
"Shut up, stop talking, please," Long Di interjected.
"Why!? It doesn't—"
"Did I not say stop talking?" Long Di lazily looked at her.
"Hmph!" Yaomu Shou pouted at Long Di's rebuke but descended into silence all the same. When the powers present saw this, shock and surprise found them.
The identity of Yaomu Shou was far from simple yet she chose to listen to Long Di? What was their relationship!?
However, Long just didn't want to hear any crap about not explaining something so pivotal to someone who seemed to have a sliver of sense.
"If you want to know what happened, your disciple attacked my acquaintances over there when they and everyone else thought I got the inheritance."
"The inheritance!?" Weiyuan Yaochuan couldn't help blurting out when he heard this.
"Yes, the inheritance. Please try to keep up, old guy," Long Di reaffirmed, not caring at all that the present elders and guardians for the disciples became red-eyed hearing such a revelation.
"It won't work!" Yaomu Shou snorted at Long Di's attempt to explain the situation.
At the end of the day, cultivators only cared about profit and gains. Humans embodied that more than anything. As far as she was concerned, all humans were the same.
Only Long Di managed to escape the stigma she attached to humans. Then again, he escaped the stigma applicable to every living being, species and race she knew about.
"Teacher!" Another cry came from the ruins of the relic as a figure dashed from the dust of the wreckage.
"Quon'er!" Weiyuan Yaochuan was shaken when he saw his disciple's current state.
Quon Bao's hair was in disarray, and his armour was shattered in many places. The pristine spear he held before was covered in cracks. His haggard appearance caused those who knew of him to suck in a cold breath of air.
He quickly arrived by his teacher's side in a hurry. "Teacher…"
Wasting no time, he began whispering in his teacher's ear while stealing glances at Long Di every now and then. His eyes were stricken with fear.
When Quon Bao finished recounting all he knew, Weiyuan Yaochuan looked at Long Di in shock!
Weiyuan Yaochuan quickly tried to compose himself. "To think that there was someone so gifted among us wasting away in the backwater trenches of the Demon Region. Why don't you come with me, child? I would let you keep the inheritance you stole as a gift from me to you for joining my school and becoming my personal disciple."
Shen Dai's expression changed visibly when he heard this old shameless fox. He was about to say something when several voices of opposition firsted him.
"Who are you to gift him the inheritance!?"
"Are we air to you!?"
"Human brat speak! Where are my disciples!?"
Several of the demon and human race elders and protectors here quickly lost their patience when they saw how the two groups from the human race were trying to monopolise the obvious culprit of today's disaster.
"Quite frankly, I see no problem with me stealing the contents of the not-relic, as you so put it." Long Di pointed out.
"So you accept that you are a thief then!?" Weiyuan Yaochuan snorted.
"I don't see why not. I mean, if we look at this from another perspective, everyone here is nothing more than a glorified graverobber. No one here is related to the Peach Blossom Sage, and yet you all wanted to take his treasures, am I not right?"
"…"
No one could refute this claim since he was right. If one did look at this from another angle, it was true that they were thieves of a supposed dead man's remains.
"Bah! Why are we wasting time talking to this brat!?" The one who spoke was the elder who accompanied the now-deceased Jiandan Tai.
He was completely incensed because of what happened.
Jiandan Tai, an important seed that the inner sect of the Iron Body Forge Sect was looking upon, was killed under his supervision.
He didn't even dare to imagine the severity of the punishment that was waiting for him.
"Everyone, my name is Gang Heng. I am an outer sect elder of the iron Body Forge Sect! All demon race sects, give my sect face and step down!"
"I-Iron Body Forge Sect!?"
"I didn't pay attention to the name of it before. I-Is he referring to THE Iron Body Forge Sect!?"
"W-What's a big name sect like that doing all the way out here!?"
"Th-That means the person the human killed was a disciple of the Iron Body Forge Sect!"
"Hehehe, blood will run rivers when the Iron Body Forge Sect catches wind of this!"
Elder Gang Heng couldn't help smirking when he saw the reaction of the demon race cultivators when he revealed his backing.
Few forces in the demon world could compel the demon race to submit, and it wasn't farfetched to assume that the Iron Body Forge Sect was one of them. It could be seen based on how the demon race cultivators were acting when it was revealed.
Even the human race experts had to back down in the face of this. Above all, the Iron Body Forge Sect was one of the ten great sects and as such, no one here could compare to them in terms of prestige.
Ultimately, there was one reason why Gang Heng wanted to deal with Long Di alone. There was something strange about this brat. He wanted to get his secrets.
Something told him that Long Di's cultivation method was strange, and even if one didn't take that into consideration, just his ability and inclusion of causing the relic to explode was worth pondering.
However, both elders, Weiyuan Yaochuan and Shen Dai became flustered when they saw this. They were surprised that such a big sect would come to such an out-the-way region, knowing that there was more behind this. However, they were even more so, surprised that there was such solidarity between the demon races.
They knew that even though they were some of, if not the strongest among the human race cultivators here, they couldn't hope to force the others to follow their orders and stay out of this.
Right now, they were working out the gains and benefits regarding what decisions to take in the time they were given.
Long Di, on the other hand, was watching everything, genuinely amused. When he saw that this Gang Heng of the Iron Body Forge Sect managed to sort out his affairs with the demon race, he called out to Yaomu Shou.
"Shou Shou, do me a favour and take Feng Yu and the others away from here."
"Wait, are you talking to me? Hold on, did you say that you want me to take them away!? What about you!?" Yaomu Shou ignored Long Di's off-the-hand butchering of her name and focused on the crazy request he made of her.
"Don't worry, I'll be fine. I won't die," he said. The confidence oozing from his apathetic expression was awe-inspiring.
She hesitated a bit regarding listening to his request.
He then explained. "Considering your current position I don't think it's easy for you to make a move, especially since I'm a human. So I'll handle stuff here for now."
"You know who I am?" Yaomu Shou was visibly surprised, thinking that she did her identity quite well. It would be troublesome if it got out where she was. This was why she waved away elder Shen Dai's words when he used her background to question her.
Long Di only glanced back at her before he turned his gaze forward again. "I extrapolated it from everyone's reaction and your power. My goal is to become the emperor of this world"
Not just Yaomu Shou, everyone's eyes widened when they heard his declaration. This word was crapped in layers of karma, so for Long Di to utter something like this without any reaction from the Heavenly daos meant that the karma already infecting him was ineffable.
"Damn!" Yaomu Shou was impressed. "You're crazier than I thought you were, and I don't know why, but I'm thinking I want to help you for some reason. Heh, Maybe I'm crazy too."
"The word you're looking for is insane, which I'm pretty sure I over-qualify for," Long Di said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I seem to be surrounded by a sea of idiots, and… you're in the splash zone."
Yaomu Shou wasn't sure, but she could swear she felt the faintest sense of bloodlust from him. 'Maybe I'm overthinking it?'
"Don't die on me."
To that request, Long Di only gave her a backward wave as she took off with Feng Yu and the others.
He stared at the approaching Gang Heng and some humans who were marching forward to the beat of their greed.
Though Gang Heng already announced his backing, there were some powers here who hid their identities and made moves towards Long Di all the same. They would try their best to fish in muddy waters.
"Hhmm, since plot armour isn't real. I need to be careful here or I'll die." Long Di muttered to himself.
He looked at his encroaching enemies with nary a change in expression; he raised his middle finger ever so slightly, causing them all to slow down their advance as they looked at him in confusion.
"I'm going to give you all the finger."
"The finger!?"
"Why does that line make me so angry!?"
"I'll kill him!"
"Uncultured brat!"
Incensed for some unknown reason by Long Di's words, everyone who made up their mind to attack Long Di broke out into a mad dash and rushed towards him, unaware of the dark clouds churning above them!
Long Di remained unmoved in the face of this, even as the ground shook beneath his feet. "I guess I'll call this move… meh, I'll think about it later.'"