Chapter 119: Fighting Over the Cub
Hearing Kabolds’ words the smile on everyone’s faces slowly dissipated. What he had said wasn’t false; if they were to try and take the cub of the Golden Fur Tiger King, they would encounter a multitude of trouble. Even if they didn’t come across the parents of this cub, bringing it back to Wake City would still be a tremendously difficult task. After all, a cub was a living animal; it could not go into the space within a Space Belt without dying, since the inside of the belt was uninhabitable. Thus, they would have to transport it from the outside. But since the road would have many groups of people, the news of a Golden Fur Tiger King cub would quickly spread about. By that point, many strong factions would come and try to provoke the Flame Mercenaries. With their current strength, this would be something they wouldn’t be able to fend off.
“Hahahaha, if you don’t have the power to carry the cub of the Golden Fur Tiger King out, then why don’t you just hand it over to us?”
At that moment, a loud shout with unconcealed joy was heard. The dark figure of a person came into view, as well as a whole group of people accompanying him. They quickly surrounded the Flame Mercenaries. There were 20 people in total, with each of them wearing a steel helmet and metal armor. Many of the mercenaries were wearing broken armor, while some of them had blood dripping from them. Just one look at them was enough for people to tell that they had just been in a fight.
Seeing such a large crowd of people come out of nowhere, everyone in the Flame Mercenaries suddenly grew unsightly expressions. But the moment they saw the little emblems on their chests, their faces immediately lost all color. Even Kendall was deathly pale as he spoke, “So it’s the Zhou Mercenaries.” His voice trembled with each syllable.
“Hahahaha, you have quite the eyesight to recognize us. Hand over the Tiger Cub to us nice and easy; you already know the consequences if you don’t.” The leader spoke with a cold gaze directed at each person in front of him in disdain. However, as he looked at the still eating Tiger Cub, an unconcealed happiness could be seen in his eyes.
No one in the Flame Mercenaries said a thing as their faces continued to lose color rapidly.
Jian Chen swept his eyes over each individual Zhou Mercenary. With his power, he could already determine how strong each mercenary roughly was. In his eyes, aside from the two Saint Masters, everyone else was a Great Saint. Those two Saint Masters, however, were still higher than Captain Kendall, and was probably at least Middle Saint Master level.
Jian Chen slowly let loose a small breath of air as he looked around himself. With his strength, as long as there wasn’t a Great Saint master, there wouldn’t be a problem.
“Aooo!” “Aooooo!”
By this point, the cub had already finished eating all of the magical beast meat given to it, and was now hungrily staring at the still grilling pieces over the bonfire. It began to cry out nonstop for the meat in hunger, completely unaware of the danger that was looming around it.
Jian Chen slowly crouched down and took the cub into his chest. At the same time, each and every member of the Zhou Mercenaries glared at Jian Chen with a cold look, emitting murderous intent.
“Kid, hand over the cub to me now. Otherwise, you’ll be dying here and now.” The leader of the Zhou Mercenaries shouted at Jian Chen.
Hearing this, Jian Chen returned their stares back at them without a hint of anger in them, Instead, he began to smile and said, “Even if we hand over the cub to you, you won’t let us go because you’re afraid that we’ll spread news of the cub, and bring about unavoidable trouble onto you. Moreover, the trouble stirred would be quite major.”
The leader sneered as he stared at Jian Chen. “You’re quite intelligent, but there are times that the smarter a person is, the sooner they die. And so sometimes, a man doesn’t want to be intelligent. Being stupid would allow them to live a little longer.” As he spoke, a great amount of Saint Force was being concentrated within his right arm, quickly forming a long sword.
The leader pointed the tip of the sword at Jian Chen and said coldly, “Kid, I’ll give you one last chance. Hand over the cub obediently, otherwise, I swear I’ll make you die a wretched death.” The man growled as the other Zhou Mercenaries began to take out their own Saint Weapons and surrounded Jian Chen to suppress him with their intimidation.
At the same time, the Flame Mercenaries had decided not to be outdone, and started to materialize their own Saint Weapons. They were extremely grave as they internally understood that even if they handed over the cub to the Zhou Mercenaries, they would still be killed. If it was the other way around, they would have done the same thing, and not let the Zhou Mercenaries go. So if they were to die, they wanted to take down a Zhou Mercenary along with them. Even if they couldn’t, the Zhou Mercenaries definitely wouldn’t escape from this without a few casualties.
Seeing the reactions of everyone in the Flame Mercenaries, the leader of the Zhou Mercenaries sneered with disdain before looking back to Jian Chen and saying, “Kid, no more kidding around. If you hand over the cub to me, I’ll spare your lives.” Right now, the cub was in Jian Chen’s arms. Seeing how Jian Chen had no intentions of letting it go, the man was afraid that if he were to act rashly, Jian Chen would kill the cub.
Jian Chen evidently knew why the man was hesitating and couldn’t help but laugh. His left hand held the howling cub while his right hand patted the shaggy fur on top of its head. “You wanted this cub so badly, so why aren’t you coming to get it? Could it be you have the guts to say you want it, but not the guts to take it?”
The cold stare intensified onto Jian Chen as the man’s face froze impassively. In his heart he had felt a strange premonition. Jian Chen’s reaction was completely abnormal, letting him feel a bit uneasy.
“You! Bring me that cub!” The leader called out to a nearby mercenary.
“Yes!” The mercenary didn’t hesitate at all as he walked toward Jian Chen carefully as if to test and see what Jian Chen would do.
When the mercenary cautiously walked up to Jian Chen, Jian Chen unexpectedly didn’t show any signs of movement. Instead, he simply stood there with an unchanging smile. Despite this, the mercenary still didn’t dare to let his guard down. He slowly reached his hand out to carefully grab at the cub in Jian Chen’s hands.
At the same time, every mercenary in the Zhou Mercenaries clenched their Saint Weapons tightly. Even the leader was growing tenser by the second as he looked at Jian Chen.
In a flash, the mercenary had succeeded in taking the club despite the struggle it had put up. From beginning to end, the mercenary had been extremely wary of any sudden attacks by Jian Chen.
At that moment, Jian Chen’s eyes grew cold as the Light Wind Sword appeared in his right hand. Transforming into a silver ray of light, it flashed towards the mercenary’s throat like
silver lightning.
Although the mercenary was attentively guarding against Jian Chen, the sword strike was far too fast for him to dodge. The moment the flash of silver lightning had passed, the man had only felt a small pain in his throat. And right under his eyes, the image of a silver sword had abruptly appeared. In the next second, the mercenary choked and wordlessly screamed in agony as he fell to the ground. As for the Class 5 cub, it had flown through the air fallen down onto the ground while howling loudly.
Jian Chen’s sword was so fast that even if the mercenary had forewarning about blocking against this sword, he would’ve failed. Jian Chen’s sword was far too fast for the other man to dodge what was almost second nature for Jian Chen to aim for.
The leader of the Zhou Mercenaries looked a bit at loss as he watched Jian Chen pierce the throat of the mercenary with an incredulous look on his face. He was secretly astonished at how fast the sword was traveling. Even with his Peak Saint Master strength, he had only seen the faint image of the sword, and was utterly incapable of seeing it clearly.
In a short moment, the leader regained his thoughts as he squashed the astonishment within his heart. “Everyone, forward. Slaughter without mercy, but do not harm the cub!” He commanded as he raised his sword with his armored hand. With an ear piercing whistle, his weapon slashed downward at Jian Chen’s head.
Within the Zhou Mercenaries, the only other Saint Master expert had pulled out his sword and mimicked the leader’s action by trying to cut down Jian Chen. From his initial strike, the two Saint Masters had already realized that Jian Chen wouldn’t be an easy opponent to fight against, so the two Zhou Mercenaries of the Saint Master level silently agreed to kill Jian Chen first.
On the other side, the Flame Mercenaries began to fight with the other members of the Zhou Mercenaries, embroiling the place into the flames of war. Although the Flame Mercenaries didn’t scatter apart, they gathered around in a circle and had the three Saints like Xiao Dao protected within. In this type of battle, the Saints like Xiao Dao would have no chance to battle, and would only die a vain death if they tried. The 5 Great Saints and the Primary Saint Master Kendall formed the outside circle, and were prepared to fight any of the Zhou Mercenaries to the death.
However, because of the difference in strength between the two sides, the fight didn’t last long. The Flame Mercenaries were already at a clear disadvantage and were already being pressured by the Zhou Mercenaries, to the point of being able to only defend.
With his sword in hand, Jian Chen’s imposing manner drastically changed. His demeanor was like a sharp sword that had just been unsheathed, giving the people around him the sensation of being shown off to. In an instant, the sword suddenly grew colder, and somehow seemed to became sharper. To the enemies of the same rank, it was almost as if the sword was robbing them of their courage.