Xu Xiaoshou's eyes had been opened.
It turned out that this was how the fairies fought each other.
With great ease, the masked man had severely injured Xiao Qixiu with one strike of the sword and hung the nine elders in the air with his [Sword Will]. Because of the hostage situation, Ye Xiaotian was subdued.
Stealing a glance at the nine elders hung in the air, Ye Xiaotian couldn't help but curse in a low voice, "They're a bunch of useless helpers!"
In Elder Sang and Ye Xiaotian's original plans they'd designed, these old guys weren't meant to be employed, but they'd insisted on helping out in an attempt to prove the value of their existence.
Did they really think it was a piece of cake to capture "[Saint Servant]?"
"Click, click!"
Ye Xiaotian grew angrier. As a result, a large crack appeared in the space. Before the masked man could respond, Xu Xiaoshou hastened to say, "Don't be so emotional. Impulse is the devil!"
Ye Xiaotian: "…"
The masked man: "…"
The nine elders hung in the air looked rather ashamed, but they weren't very strong-willed by nature and were well-behaved. At the moment, they couldn't escape the masked man's long-distance control.
"Don't worry about us. '[Saint Servant]' should be killed by all. Capture him and bring him to the Holy Divine Palace. Doing so will benefit all human beings!" one of the elders said.
Hearing this, the masked man's eyes turned cold. "Should be killed by all? Do I know you? Did I kill your whole family?"
As the masked man waved his hand, the sword energy came out from the endless rain droplets and passed through the body of the elder who'd spoken, turning him into a bloody person.
Ye Xiaotian's eyelids twitched.
"You…" Another elder became upset and said sternly, "If you're so powerful…"
"Too noisy!"
The masked man turned his head toward the speaking elder. All of a sudden, the rain droplets turned into a sword and pierced through the elder, turning him into a second bloody person.
Nobody dared to speak now. Besides the seven elders hung in the air, the law enforcers on the ground fell silent as well.
There was a hint of mockery in the cloudy eyes of the masked man as he said slowly, "I shouldn't fail to take care of the others."
He waved his hand one more time. The rainy swords whizzed in the sky, turning the remaining seven elders into bloody men.
Xu Xiaoshou was dumbfounded. This masked man really was brazen…
This was reckless! What he was doing was reckless!
"You…" Ye Xiaotian couldn't stand it any longer and was about to act, but the masked man quickly spun his head around and took a step back.
"Don't be so emotional," he said. "Impulse is the devil!"
And he added, "I have ten hostages."
Ye Xiaotian: "…"
He shot Xu Xiaoshou a stern look.
Xu Xiaoshou was stunned. Why was he being stared at? He wasn't the attacker.
More importantly, he couldn't act on impulse at the moment, Xu Xiaoshou thought to himself. The deaths of those old men weren't a big deal, and the masked man had allowed him to live this long, so he shouldn't die.
Xu Xiaoshou wanted to complain again but chose to shut up instead when he recalled the masked man's comment that he was "too noisy."
The masked man glanced at him and smiled. "You're very interesting. You can speak."
"…"
"I don't want to talk," Xu Xiaoshou responded crossly. "You'd better let me go, like a fart you keep holding in.
"You masters are fighting each other. I'm of no value to you."
The masked man patted his head and said, "Don't belittle yourself. Actually, you're quite valuable."
[Praised, passive point, +1]
Xu Xiaoshou nearly went mad. He had no intention of getting involved, and he had no idea what value he had.
He wanted to go back to sleep.
And if he couldn't go back to sleep, he'd like to go back to building his house.
But here…
He looked down at Goose Lake, which, from this height, was but a dot.
It was very high, cold, and scary up here.
"What on earth do you want?" Ye Xiaotian stared at the masked man, trying his hardest to suppress his anger. He was afraid he might pull down a large patch of sky if he let his emotions get out of control.
"All I want is to take an object. I'll leave afterward."
"Nothing in the Spirit Palace belongs to you!"
The masked man laughed. "The object I want will be mine."
Ye Xiaotian took a deep breath.
The masked man raised up the young man in his hand. "This person is very interesting. Can you give him to me?"
Xu Xiaoshou felt sick to his stomach.
He wasn't an object! He was a person. He couldn't be given away.
And he had no intention of leaving the Spirit Palace. He'd just won the title of champion and hadn't left a legacy here yet.
Ye Xiaotian glanced at the young man and said, "I can give this person to you, but you have to let the other nine go, and you must promise that you won't come to the Tiansang Spirit Palace again."
Xu Xiaoshou: "? ? ?"
The look in the masked man's eyes seemed to suggest he was considering this offer.
But before the masked man could respond, an angry swear echoed through the heavens and across the earth.
"Ye Xiaotian, shut your d*mned mouth!"
After this remark, the sun seemed to become hotter, the rain stopped falling, and the empty space was warped.
The accumulated water pools on the ground evaporated in the blink of an eye, and the forest path turned dry and cracked.
The horrifying hot atmosphere surrounded the whole area, and the law enforcers around Goose Lake felt horrified, their foreheads breaking out in a cold, warm sweat.
An old man holding a conical hat appeared in front of the three of them in the sky. His eyes ringed with dark circles were fixated on Xu Xiaoshou.
"Elder Sang?"
Except for Xu Xiaoshou, the other two men looked like they'd expected this result.
Ye Xiaotian imperceptibly rolled his eyeballs. This guy had finally been forced to come out.
"Don't tell me any more nonsense."
Elder Sang pointed at the young man in the hands of the masked man. "This person has to be given back to me. You can kill the nine others if you want to. After the killing, we can negotiate the next step."
Nine elders?
Xu Xiaoshou was so moved that tears almost fell from his eyes.
He'd thought this old man had a strange, self-centered and desolate personality, but now he found his eyes ringed with dark circles rather amiable.
What he'd said was more decent and virtuous than what Ye Xiaotian had said.
His stance was different from the Chief of the Inner Yard's. The Chief of the Inner Yard wanted to give the champion of the Outer Yard away.
As Xu Xiaoshou thought about all this, he found that the masked man was holding him more tightly, and he heard a terrifying voice say, "You're valuable as I thought."
Xu Xiaoshou felt his heart tremble. He shot Elder Sang a look that yelled "help me."
Elder Sang looked at Xu Xiaoshou and gave a familiar grin. "Relax. As long as you have a breath left in you, this old man will save you."
Seeing the grin, Xu Xiaoshou instinctively felt concerned. What did this old man have on his mind?
Don't act too recklessly!
The masked man retreated as he heard those words.
"Want to flee?"
The corners of Elder Sang's curled up, and he reached out his hand. The retreating masked man stopped moving and started to tremble violently.
"[Infernal Heavens]?"
Xu Xiaoshou's pupils shrank as he felt a hot energy flow into his own body through the body of the masked man.
Boom!
The hotness exploded inside his body, and then started to burn fiercely. The pain was one hundred times more painful than what he'd experienced when cultivating the [Infernal Fire Seed].
"Cough, couch!"
It felt like his throat was on fire. The blood in his mouth evaporated before he could even spit it out.
His skin cracked, and the water in his body dried up. Xu Xiaoshou sensed that his life was rapidly leaving him, and his vision was going black.
Was this the "[Infernal Heavens]?"
The "Burning People Alive" he employed seemed like mere house-play in comparison...
His consciousness grew blurrier and blurrier. In the end, Xu Xiaoshou seemed to hear the slightly panicked voice of the masked man say:
"I can give you the lad, but take back the fire!"