Han Qiong actually had many tricks up his sleeve, but Gu Nan accurately predicted his decisions at every step, making it hard for him to play his cards.
He had an absolute advantage at the beginning; even when Gu Nan attacked and crippled one of his hands, he could still chase Gu Nan all over the land.
However, now that both of his hands were injured, Han Qiong no longer had an advantage. Neither time nor geographical conditions were on his side.
"Little thief, you..." Han Qiong watched the other party dashing away at a much faster speed than before and finally realized that something was wrong.
"Let me introduce myself." Gu Nan stood at a safe distance. He smiled lightly while sending a nod in greeting. "This humble one is Gu Nan. In your words, I am someone who you call as one of the Blessed."
Han Qiong's heart sank a bit more. Having reached a position as high as his, he already knew some of the reincarnators' secrets. For example, although reincarnators each help a respective side, they might actually originate from the same place.
If he'd known that the other party was one of the Blessed, he would have never been so careless.
It was a pity that the term "Innate Realm" gave him a preconceived motion, so at first, he didn't take Gu Nan seriously at all.
Just as Gu Nan was stalling for time with senseless chatter, "Praise of Dawn" was already activated, and his injuries started rapidly recovering. Even the broken arm repaired itself at a speed invisible to the naked eye.
Only then did Han Qiong remember the scene when they had first met. 'I'm afraid I can recall how my opponent didn't block my attack, but took it straight-on using his powerful regeneration abilities!'
'No wonder he dares to trade injury for injury with me...'
To put it bluntly, Gu Nan's series of actions didn't have any technical skill involved at all. All he did was make good use of his own advantages.
However, the most critical piece was how to induce the enemy into playing by Gu Nan's rules—in other words, life is like a play, and everything depends on one's acting skills.
Han Qiong looked around but found that he hadn't been able to recognize his surroundings for a while now.
Earlier, he didn't take Gu Nan seriously at all, so how could he even consider the possibility of a trap? Even if someone ambushed him, he was still confident that he could get away using his Prodigious Realm strength, but...
"Then, Your Excellency, are you ready to die?" The wounds on Gu Nan's body finally closed up. He grinned and raised his hand, shooting forth a flame arrow.
...
...
Du Mian and Second Highness remained in the same place.
The former didn't move because the tendons in his wrists and ankles had been severed. He didn't have the ability to move quickly for the time being, while the latter stayed in the same location because he wasn't worried at all. He was simply waiting for Han Qiong to return with that boy in his hand.
Of course, there was also the small chance that Han Qiong's old age would deplete his strength faster, and that boy might make a successful escape.
'Then, I can just mock him when he returns.' That was what Second Highness thought.
Soon, the sound of someone breaking through the air traveled over, and Han Qiong hurriedly ran towards the two from a distance. He was indeed alone.
Second Highness was just about to speak, but Han Qiong had already yelled out, "Leave! Leave now!"
Second Highness was slightly stunned when he heard this. Before he could react, he felt something cold approach him from behind. Then he felt a pain in his neck, and his entire vision seemed to be flying.
"That's... My body..." Second Highness saw his headless body, and then also saw Han Qiong.
Han Qiong was bleeding all over. One arm was completely broken, the left side of his face was blown up, and there was a dreadfully large wound in his abdomen—even his wriggling intestines could be seen.
"How could..."
Beside him, Du Mian's vision had already gone dark, and he couldn't stop himself from falling onto the ground. His worst fear still came true.
'Although I don't know how that person did it, even Martial Uncle suffered a defeat at his hands...'
When Han Qiong saw the shadow pass by from a distance, followed by Second Highness' head flying up, he paused in his steps. He could clearly see that Gu Nan merely stood behind Second Highness and slapped his head.
"Is that the secret technique to increase his explosive strength again...."
Han Qiong almost gnashed his teeth. He had never seen such a secret technique. The opponent had used it over ten times along the way, but it didn't seem to have consumed any energy at all.
Normally, such a secret technique which allowed an Innate Realm to challenge a Prodigious Realm could only be used once or twice.
How could he know that Gu Nan didn't actually need to consume any energy to use equipment skills? At most, he just had to wait for the cooldown to end.
Now, Han Qiong simply stopped running. He knew that he probably wouldn't be able to escape. Instead, he calmed down and looked at Gu Nan. "Your Excellency, who are you? What grudges do you have against my Limitless Demon Sect?"
Gu Nan naturally didn't have any grudge against them. He just wanted to kill Han Qiong and get the reward.
So Gu Nan raised his head and declared righteously, "For righteous people like us, we must eliminate the wicked demonic path evildoers!"
Han Qiong didn't have much reaction to that. He just felt that he was unlucky to have run into such a thickhead, so he was out of luck. Du Mian, on the other hand, almost started swearing on the spot.
'Like hell you're part of the righteous path! Does the righteous path have people like you, who cut prisoners' wrist and ankle tendons all day?!'
Han Qiong suffered guerilla warfare from Gu Nan along the way. He was originally relying on that one last thought in his heart to keep himself alive, but upon seeing Second Highness die and Du Mian with probably no way to survive either, he died soon after his will broke.
Like this, a Prodigious Realm master, who could traverse both heaven and earth, died in Gu Nan's hands.
"3 Evil Value and 100 points." Gu Nan looked at the display in the Evil God Temple and nodded with satisfaction.
The Evil God Temple's mechanism for determining the amount of rewards was quite flexible. He killed his Tier 3 target using only with Tier 2 strength, so the reward was much higher than normal.
Right now, Gu Nan's Evil Value had reached 48, so he only needed to earn 2 more to advance to Tier 3.
Contrary to his expectations, Du Mian calmed down after seeing Han Qiong's corpse fall to the ground. He watched Gu Nan walk over step by step and closed his eyes, waiting for death to come.
However, Gu Nan just patted him on the shoulder. "Boy, go back now. Remember to come back and take revenge on me… Oh right, do you know the way?"
...
...
When Gu Nan returned to the manor, Yan Xiaoxiao was still dressed as a girl from a wealthy family. She wore a bright yellow garment as she waited for Gu Nan's return.
But the first sentence that came out of her mouth was, "Teacher, why did you let Du Mian go?"
Gu Nan immediately gave her head a hard knock. "You sure have guts. You dared to even watch a fight involving a Prodigious Realm expert?"
Yan Xiaoxiao held her head and gave him an innocent expression, but Gu Nan knew that she was merely curious about his actions.
Perhaps in Yan Xiaoxiao's eyes, this Teacher of hers should be vicious and merciless, cutting down enemies and also eliminating their very roots.
As for the real reason why Gu Nan let Du Mian go, it was actually very simple—killing an Innate Realm Du Mian would give him one Evil Value at most, or perhaps even none at all. It was better to kill him after fattening him up.
"Du Mian is just a trivial matter... How many members does Azure Dragon Hall have now?"
Speaking about the newly-established organization, Yan Xiaoxiao turned serious and replied, "There are 233 members at Innate Realm, but no detailed statistics about those at Acquired Realm—probably around 1200 people."
Most of her recent efforts had been focused on this, so she had long since memorized this kind of data.
Gu Nan just gave a slight nod. "I'm going into closed-door cultivation for a while... Additionally, I'll bring a child over in a couple of days, so you can get acquainted with her."
Devotee's Game System Inspired Note
» This section of the chapter is a Fan based created system to mock-up or simulate the 'Status Information' of our MC - Gu Nan. This implies that you are free to skip reading this and continue your journey onto the next chapter.
» All catalog data below is a summary of various information achieved by Gu Nan that corresponds till the end of the related chapter and is compiled into a singular 'Status Screen.' Additionally, the invented system below would continue to evolve as we progress and learn more about the novel itself.
MC's Status Information
Name: Gu Nan
Current Location: Gu family's residence at Ruby Fish Star
Current Soul Location: In a small villa, West of the South Central Region, Immortal Demon World
Status: ⟪ Evil God ⟫
Advancement Direction: Agility Type
Current Evil God Rank: Tier 2
Equivalent/Current Martial Art: External Kung Fu - Innate Realm Sixth Stage
Current Evil God Temple Quest:
→ Main Mission Objective/s:
-— Eliminate the six demonic factions. - External Source
◈ Status: On Going
-— Evil Event: Bai Luoluo's Blackening. - Evil God Temple Issued
◈ Status: On Going
→ Side Quest Objective:
-— Kill the six demonic factions Innate Realm and above cultivators. - External Source
◈ Status: On Going
Current Evil Points: 910
Overall Evil Points: 2185, Overall Evil Value: 48
Exclusive Skills Acquired:
— Deceitful Steps. [ Passive Ability ] ｢Movement Speed increased by 30%. Attack Speed increased by 50%｣
— Power of Shadows. [ LVL 1 ] ｢Allows the players to activate the skill "Hidden Shadows".｣
▸Hidden Shadows. ｢The power to manipulate shadows to a fine degree.｣
Equipment being worn
→ Armor
-— Dawn Sage's Robe. ｢Basic level defense. If you are not attacked within 3 seconds, you will receive the "Praise of Dawn" effect.｣
→ Weapon
-— Four Element Crossbow. ｢A Tier 2 crossbow weapon that can generate four types of elemental arrows—earth, water, wind, and fire—based on the user's needs and does not need to load arrows.｣
→ Accessories - Facial Accessories, Necklace, Earrings
-— Observer Eyepiece. ｢An eyepiece that have a fixed Tier 2 magic 'Insight' inscribe in it.｣
-— Dragon Heart Pendant. ｢Allows players to activate the skill "Dragon Power". This skill cannot be upgraded｣
-— Shadow Earrings. ｢Skill 'Power of Shadows' LVL +1｣
Equipment Skills Acquired:
-— Insight. ｢Ability to obtain high-precision data analysis when looking at people or objects.｣
-— Dragon Power. ｢Greatly enhances the player's strength and physique. Duration: 5 seconds. Cooldown: 5 minutes｣
-— Praise of Dawn. [Passive Ability ] ｢Increases self-healing ability by 300%｣
Item/s owned:
→ None.