Su Hongmei watched with wide eyes as her senior brother rolled away. Although she had never liked this senior brother of hers, she had never seen him like this before.
Senior Brother Tao rolled and rolled, only stopping after several dozen meters.
The effects of Law Speaking disappeared, and Senior Brother Tao finally regained control of his body and was able to stand back up. Unfortunately, all that rolling had left him bedraggled and filthy, particularly as there had been some dog feces on his path which he had rolled right through. He was now covered in the stuff, smelling as awful as he looked.
Su Hongmei couldn’t help but laugh.
“Bastard!” As Senior Brother Tao looked at himself, he grew angrier and angrier.
He couldn’t believe that something like this had happened to him. He glared at Tang Jie, the flames of fury blazing in his eyes.
“Seeking death!” he roared, pulling out a silver hook and swinging it at Tang Jie.
He loathed Tang Jie for the humiliation rendered upon him and held nothing back in this attack, the silver hook glowing with a frosty light.
Tang Jie simply thrust out a finger, and the moment it touched the hook, it froze, and then it erupted in a burst of light and shrapnel.
Tang Jie waved his hand, drawing a golden grain into his palm.
Ever since reaching Violet Palace, he rarely used the Weapon Mantra. This was mainly because his opponents were strong and their treasures too valuable to shatter. But since he had run into a Spirit Ring piece of trash with a decent art relic, wouldn’t it be a waste to not shatter it?
After gathering the golden grain, Tang Jie walked deeper into the Red Leaf Alliance, totally ignoring Senior Brother Tao.
Su Hongmei followed in shock. “You actually shattered Senior Brother Tao’s Frost Hook?”
Tang Jie casually replied, “Is that surprising? He’s just a Spirit Ring cultivator, one tier lower than me. It’s not strange that I can shatter his art relic.”
“This is different,” Su Hongmei replied. “The Frost Hook was forged by his master using Absolute Yin Ice Iron, and it took three whole years to forge, so it’s not so easily broken. He once fought against a Heart Demon cultivator using this treasure, and it wasn’t destroyed then. Even his own master couldn’t do it.”
While Su Hongmei called him “Senior Brother”, they weren’t actually from the same sect.
“That’s just because his master was unwilling to,” Tang Jie chuckled.
This was true. Even without the Weapon Mantra, there were plenty of cultivators who could shatter treasures. The real secret of the Weapon Mantra wasn’t in the ability to shatter, but the ability to create.
It was a tool of creation, not destruction, the culmination of the Metal Dao, the Greater Essence of the Weapon Dao!
Su Hongmei bemoaned, “Although Senior Brother was rude, shattering his art relic was also inappropriate. This will be a big problem.”
Tang Jie indifferently said, “If this puts you in a difficult spot, then this Tang will simply take his leave.”
Tang Jie turned and began to walk away.
He had barely made it a few steps when a voice came from deeper within. “Honored guest, why are you leaving so soon? My ignorant disciple offended you, and he was properly punished for it.”
A gentle breeze swept out, blocking Tang Jie’s path.
This breeze contained the power to hold back a Heart Demon cultivator, and while Tang Jie needed only a thought to break through, he still stopped, letting that breeze hold him back while he feigned shock.
The gates of the Red Leaf Alliance opened wide, and that voice continued, “Honored guest, please come in.”
Su Hongmei leaned over and said, “Master is personally inviting you in. Big Brother Tang, please don’t refuse.”
So this was the Alliance Lord of the Red Leaf Alliance, Liu Nanshan?
From the move just now, it appeared that he at least had a very precise control over his strength, which made him worthy of his title.
Tang Jie originally hadn’t planned to leave, and since he was being invited, he decided to stride on in.
Without a Senior Brother Tao to stop him, he went straight through and eventually came before a large hall.
Several people were seated in the hall, their leader a lean-faced, dignified man in a green robe, who was probably Liu Nanshan. There were three others besides him: a giant muscular man, a black-robed elder, and a young woman in a palace gown. All of them were at Infant Tending and were likely the leaders of the other three sects of the Red Leaf Alliance: the Heavenly Saber Gate, the Black Frost Sect, and the Incense Weave Sect.
The Su siblings were disciples of Liu Nanshan, but Wang An was the nephew of the Heavenly Saber Gate’s Wang Zhanshan. Upon seeing their elders, they immediately prostrated and explained what they had experienced.
The two sect masters grunted when they heard that the Hemos hunting squad had been after their disciples, but when they heard that their disciples had struck back, they turned grave and hesitant, clearly worried about possible counterattack.
Since their disciples had been saved, they didn’t criticize Tang Jie too much, but the sect master of the Black Frost Sect, Mo Wuxin, rudely said, “Scoundrel, the Hemos are ascendant, and we humans are doing our best to avoid their attention, but you dared to strike back? Don’t you understand the disaster this could bring on us?”
This man was Senior Brother Tao’s master, and he was gravely displeased over how Tang Jie had made his disciple roll around like a ball. He had already been holding himself back, so when he heard that Tang Jie had helped their cultivators kill members of the Hemos hunting squad, he finally lost his composure.
He also added, “I think we should tie him up and send him to the Hemos to be executed. This along with some resources as compensation should be enough to smooth things over.”
“What?” Su Hongmei paled.
She immediately stood in front of Tang Jie and shouted, “For what? Big Brother Tang only intervened to save us, and we were the ones who did the killing. Why should he be the one handed over? If you want to hand someone over, hand over us!”
“Bastard!” Mo Wuxin barked. “Not only did you make a mess of your mission, now you dare go against your superiors? Realize that my proposal is to save you. Do you have to wait until the Hemos come over to know regret?”
Su Cang resentfully said, “Old Mo, that’s not right at all. Why is our Red Leaf Alliance in Thousand Autumns City? Isn’t this because this is the front line against the Hemos and demons? We’re here with the solemn responsibility of protecting humanity, so how can we sell out our heroes before the enemy is even here?”
Mo Wuxin roared, “It’s precisely to protect humanity that we have to do things this way! Or do you want to provoke the Hemos cultivator army into coming over and wiping us out?”
Su Cang retorted, “Protecting by sacrificing our heroes?”
“Correct!”
The two quarreled to the point of blows, glaring each other down. Even though Su Cang was only at Spirit Ring, an entire realm separating him from an Infant Tending cultivator, he didn’t back down in the slightest.
Mo Wuxin trembled in rage, but just when he was about to speak, Luo Xiangran, the sect master of the Incense Weave Sect, said, “Alright, enough. Why are you even arguing? We’re on the same side. Bickering like this will only make outsiders think less of us.”
Su Hongmei raised an eyebrow. “Sect Master Luo, there are no outsiders here. Big Brother Tang is a Heart Demon cultivator of profound cultivation who saved us, so we plan to invite him to our Red Leaf Alliance, adding a powerful ally to our forces.”
Mo Wuxin immediately said, “‘Powerful ally’? More like ‘walking disaster’!”
Su Cang was going to argue, but Liu Nanshan interrupted, “Alright, enough arguing.”
Everyone stopped and looked to Liu Nanshan. This wasn’t only because he was the Alliance Lord, but also because he was the only Deification cultivator among them and also because he was known for being impartial. While Tang Jie judged him as lacking daring, in the eyes of the Red Leaf Alliance, he was a reliable Alliance Lord.
Liu Nanshan looked at Tang Jie and said, “Sir Tang saved my lowly disciples, so I express my gratitude. Come; gift this man one hundred Blood Jades.”
Someone immediately came forward with a jade tray upon which one hundred Blood Jades were neatly stacked. These were a cultivation resource of the Blood River Domain that was neither too great nor too bad. For the price of saving someone’s life, it was clearly lacking.
But these one hundred Blood Jades made the Su siblings tremble in realization.
Sure enough, Liu Nanshan then said, “Sect Master Mo’s words, while unpleasant to hear, are reasonable. The Hemos are the stronger force, and we humans cannot afford to offend them. The Hemos are bound to take revenge for the loss of their hunting squad.”
“Master…” Su Hongmei said in a trembling voice.
Liu Nanshan was deaf to her words. “But I do not support handing you over to the Hemos. My Red Leaf Alliance does not return kindness with evil, nor have we retreated to this level.”
The Su siblings relaxed.
Liu Nanshan went on, “Thus, we will not send you to the Hemos hunting squads, but unfortunately, we also cannot accept you into the Red Leaf Alliance. In the end, the Red Leaf Alliance cannot give the Hemos a reason to attack. Please, Sir, take these Blood Jades and leave.”
All was silent in the hall.
Tang Jie gazed at the tray of Blood Jades and then pointed at the Su siblings. “What about those three?”
Liu Nanshan froze, and then he silently gazed at his disciples.
Tang Jie understood.
The future of the Su siblings would depend on the attitude of the Hemos.
Tang Jie chuckled. “There’s something that I’m wondering if I should say or not.”
Liu Nanshan raised his hand. “Please, speak your mind.”
Tang Jie said, “Within the Blood River Domain, the humans, fiends, and demons are the reigning factions, with the fiends being the strongest and the humans the weakest. But why is it that the fiends have never exterminated the humans? Is it because we’ve been yielding ground all this time?”
He looked up at the four sect masters, who said nothing.
“You all know the answer, right? If they only yielded, humans would have been exterminated long ago. Humans have been able to survive until now, even holding on to this single region not through yielding and forbearance, but through courage and fists, through countless cultivators throwing themselves into battle over the countless years!
“Can the fiends exterminate us? They can! But they don’t dare!
“Why? Because they are well aware of how high the price they have to pay for it will be, and with the demons watching, they don’t dare to pay up.
“This is why humans have been able to survive until now, through our guts, our courage, our lives! Yes, the humans are outmatched and can’t afford to provoke our foes, but if they come at us, we can’t back down. As the front line of humanity, confronting the advance of the Hemos, if we keep retreating and retreating, can this even be considered a front line? And is this kind of cultivator a cultivator of humanity?”
Everyone was moved by his words.
Tang Jie took in a deep breath. “Don’t let them slowly grind away at our will! Don’t let them extinguish our courage! When the time comes to fight, we human cultivators should fight!”
Tang Jie turned and strode out of the hall.