"Young master, are you feeling okay?" Leader Ye was somewhat worried about the mental state of his young master. He knew that it was Xie Yang's first time killing bandits, more specifically, his first time taking another human life, and Leader Ye was worried that it might have left a psychological shadow in his heart.
Contrary to his expectations, Xie Yang directed his bright, sparkling eyes towards him and calmly said, "Brother, thank you for worrying about me, but as you can see, I am feeling fine, not troubled by killing some scums at all."
Leader Ye was glad to see that his young master mentality was far better than most people, and he couldn't help but let a smile creep up to his stern face.
"Brother, help me prepare a trap for the incoming bandits."
"En."
After Leader Ye prepared a trap according to the instructions of Xie Yang, the two hurriedly stepped towards the thickest green tree nearest to them. Once they neared it, they raised their right foot and smashed it on the grassy ground below with such strength that they shot forward in an upward arc, leaping towards the thick green branches of the tree dense with leaves.
They landed on two different branches that were close to each other and hid behind a bundle of leaves.
To camouflage themselves better, Leader Ye also cast his unique spiritual technique. An immense amount of spiritual energy released from his palm, enveloping himself, Xie Yang, and the entire tree, causing them to blur out of existence and become invisible to the naked eye.
Xie Yang blinked his eyes in surprise when he and the tree became colorless and invisible, and he realized that Leader Ye had used a very powerful auxiliary spiritual technique!
"Young master, now what?"
Leader Ye's voice was loud, but because he had surrounded the tree with his unique spiritual energy barrier that canceled sound from traveling five meters away from the tree, only Xie Yang heard it.
Xie Yang answered, "Now we wait for our targets to arrive at the scene and step on our carefully prepared trap."
A thoughtful look flashed across Xie Yang's squinted eyes as he calculated that the bandits should be arriving here soon. A few minutes had already passed since the now dead sword-wielding bandit sent out the help-seeking signal. They were bound to come soon.
A few minutes later, Leader Ye and Xie Yang heard the sound of footsteps. They turned their head to look at the source of the clattering noise and saw five bandits dressed in metallic armor. Some of them were around the fifth level of the first realm, and only two of them were above level 7, but because they were wearing solid armor, they were stronger than their actual cultivation level.
When they saw the bodies of their comrades sprawled next to an empty space, their eyes widened. In truth, there was no empty space. Instead, there was a thick tree behind the corpses, and both Xie Yang and Leader Ye were hiding on it. Of course, they couldn't see the tree or the people on it. It looked like empty space to them, thanks to Leader Ye's spiritual technique.
Without as much as a second thought, the newly arrived bandits dashed towards the corpses of the three bandits and inspected them. They felt angered after determining that the killer didn't even leave a single penny on them and instead stripped everything of value from the corpses of the three bandits.
"What a greedy bastard!"
While one of them stored the three corpses into the inter-spatial ring shared by all of them, four of the newly arrived bandits cursed the killer for being too greedy.
"Which son of a bitch killed them? Do you dare show your face?" One of them angrily shouted.
"Idiot! Why do you think they would stay here and wait for us to arrive to kill them? The killers aren't as stupid and battle-hungry as you. They must have made a run for it right after seeing the help-seeking talisman shooting out a signal in the sky."
The stupid bandit, who became even dumber after his rage and anger consumed the last of his brain cells, wanted to retort, but before he could say a thing, the boss of the five bandits intervened.
"Do not start bickering with each other."
The strongest one among the five bandits glanced at them, and they nervously swallowed whatever they wanted to say.
"Whoever killed them must be nearby. Go and search for them."
"Yes, boss."
They turned their backs to the tree that was invisible to them and were just about to go away from it when Xie Yang made his move. After using his eyes to signal Leader Ye to attack also, Xie Yang jumped down the tree and plunged straight towards one of the bandits.
Mid-air, blue wisps of spiritual energy surged out of his right hand and infused with his sword, causing a layer of spiritual chilliness to envelop it and increase its strength and sharpness. And he brought his sword down towards the head of the level 8 bandit without a second thought.
Puchi!