Chapter 228: Making a Name For Oneself in Battle
Jian Chen’s eyes swept across the seven Great Saint Masters in front of him with a great big smile. At this moment, his heart was filled with joy since from this moment on, his Flame Mercenaries would no longer just be a solitary group. With the introduction of these seven Great Saint Masters, the strength of the Flame Mercenaries would increase many times over.
However, Jian Chen understood that these seven men were not truly obeying him and would most likely try to betray him later. Yet this wasn’t extremely important to Jian Chen since he was only planning to use them to temporarily improve his Flame Mercenaries’ strength. He would use them to accomplish a few mercenary missions to improve their Flame Mercenaries’ grade. This method was completely exploiting the seven Great Saint Masters, but since Jian Chen had no important use for them, he would only use them for a small amount of time.
“Why don’t you five introduce yourselves.” Jian Chen asked the five.
With some hesitation, the five men looked at each other before a black robed man spoke out, “I am Seth, the leader of the Hot Blooded Mercenaries.”
“I am Duo Kang, the captain of the Golden Dragon Mercenaries.”
“I am Charcas of the Char Mercenaries.”
“I am called Mo Tian, the leader of the Mercenaries of Slaughter.”
“I am called Qingfeng of the Zephyr Mercenaries.”
The five men called out their names and affiliation one after another, but with each introduction Jian Chen had heard, the more he was shocked. He didn’t think that these five would be the captains of mercenary groups. If it was like this, then he had just gained control of five mercenary groups and two very influential clans of Wake City.
With this revelation, Jian Chen was satisfied with the profit he had earned today. He didn’t think that a lone person like him would suddenly make a leap to become someone who controlled a good amount of power.
At the same time, he was painfully aware that while this was a strong amount of power within Wake City, within the Tian Yuan Continent, this was nothing major.
“Qingfeng of the Zephyr Mercenaries!” Upon hearing the final person’s name, Jian Chen’s eyes revealed a look of shock. This name was the exact same name as his sword, how coincidental!
Jian Chen looked deeply at the man named Qingfeng closely. This man looked to be around forty years old and was rather skinny like how a scholar would be. He wore a white colored robe and his hair was draped over his shoulders, reaching down to his waist. Occasionally, the wind would blow his hair in a way that made it drift in the breeze. His eyebrows were like sharp swords and did nothing to hide the bright pair of eyes underneath that contained a lively shine to them. They gave off the feeling that his stares could pierce into someone as easily as a sword would.
Slowly moving away from Qingfeng, Jian Chen looked at the other group of Tianxiong members, “Tianxiong Lie has died. From this moment on, Wake City will no longer have a Tianxiong clan. I know many of you are guards paid for by the Tianxiong clan; since I am in a good mood and do not wish to mercilessly kill the innocent, you may all go.”
Suddenly the hundred guards all were shaken out of their stupor and turned their eyes away from the seven Great Saint Masters and the the dead bodies of the Tianxiong brothers. The entire courtyard grew deathly silent.
“This one thanks the hero for his kindness…”
“This one thanks the hero for not killing us…”
……
After that, the silence was instantly broken as many people began to cry out their thanks to Jian Chen. After that was done no one had any reluctance to stay behind and immediately left.
Quickly, the hundred guards left the Tianxiong clan courtyard, leaving behind forty people that refused to leave.
Jian Chen looked at those few people with some confusion, “Why haven’t you left yet?”
Some of the men hesitated for a second before a sturdy looking man stepped forward and looked at Jian Chen’s young face, “Swordsman, I wish to go with you, will you accept me?”
“Follow me?” Jian Chen had a surprised look on his face. Looking at this man, he guessed him to be around thirty years old with a good build of around two meters. His muscles were rather pronounced and judging from the air he carried around, Jian Chen could estimate that this man was at the Saint Master level.
Jian Chen nodded his head, “If you truly wish to join me, then I’ll add you to the registers in a moment at the Mercenary Union.”
The man revealed a look of pure joy as he hurriedly said, “This one will listen to fellow swordsman’s words!”
“Fellow swordsman, I too wish to join your mercenary group.”
“Fellow swordsman, please accept me into your mercenary group as well…”
Soon after that, a few other mercenaries began to cry out with their pleas for Jian Chen to notice and accept them.
Although Jian Chen had killed Tianxiong Lie, many of these men were merely hired by the Tianxiong clan and had no other affiliation with Tianxiong Lie. They weren’t friendly with him either and so they did not have any hard feelings over his death nor would they attempt at getting revenge on Jian Chen.
Because of their begging, Jian Chen could only admit that while these men were at the Great Saint level and higher with only a few Saint Masters, once they joined the Flame Mercenaries, then the group’s strength would increase many times over.
Jian Chen didn’t know what their true aim was or if they had loyalties to someone else, but right now this wouldn’t serve as a hindrance to the Flame Mercenaries. Right now, the mercenary group desperately needed members. When the situation with the Flame Mercenaries stabilized, only then would Jian Chen clean the group of its tumors.
“Aside from Tianxiong Lie and Tianxiong Daoyun, are there any other men?” Jian Chen looked at the forty remaining men and asked.
As Jian Chen asked his question, the first man that had pledged to follow Jian Chen had immediately spoke up, “Tianxiong Lie had three wives who all live in the back of the courtyard. Please wait one moment fellow swordsman and I will bring them out immediately.” With that, he immediately ran to the back of the courtyard. Soon after, a few quick-minded people suddenly saw a good opportunity to get on the good side of Jian Chen and immediately ran after the man.
After seeing these men leave for the back of the courtyard, the remaining forty men suddenly went dark as though they realized they just missed out on a good opportunity. Just looking at the men disappear into the back of the courtyard, the men had a dark killing intent in their eyes.
Jian Chen looked at those men and couldn’t help but have a small cold smile on his face. From their expressions, Jian Chen instantly took note of it and their faces, but he didn’t do anything about it. To him, these men could be exploited later and could be expended at a moment’s notice when their value dropped.
“Let go of me! Release me now!”
Soon the fearful cries of a few women could be heard as the group of men that had left earlier came back with three women in the middle of them. Out of the three of them, two were around thirty years old while the last one looked to be around twenty years old with a rather pretty appearance.
“Fellow swordsman, these three are the wives of Tianxiong Lie. Two of them have been with him for many years while the younger looking one has only been married to Tianxiong Lie for two years.” Before Jian Chen could even ask, the first man introduced them.
“Ah,” Jian Chen nodded his head with satisfaction toward this man’s work. He hadn’t thought that this burly man would be so meticulous.
The three women were deathly pale as if they had lost all blood circulation in their faces. The moment they saw the dead bodies of Tianxiong Lie and Tianxiong Daoyun, they all went silent with extreme shock.
The man looked at Jian Chen’s face as he held his axe at the neck of one of the woman, “Fellow swordsman, since these three are Tianxiong Lie’s wives, should we kill them?”
“D-don’t ki-kill me. P-please don’t kill m-me…”
The three woman instantly cried out in terror from that question. As if they knew that Jian Chen was the one responsible for this, they all looked pitifully at Jian Chen’s figure as their sparkling teardrops began to flow from their eyes like a river.
Seeing how desperate these three women were, Jian Chen could only sigh before waving his hand, “Okay, let them go.” Against these three women who couldn’t even resist, Jian Chen didn’t care. After all, he wasn’t a cold-blooded person.
“Yes, swordsman!” They had no objections to Jian Chen’s words and immediately released the woman from their grasps and their weapons.
Afterward, Jian Chen took the large group of people and left the Tianxiong clan’s courtyard. The matter regarding the Tianxiong clan could be said to have met a spectacular ending.
The establishment of the Tianxiong clan hadn’t been created that long ago and couldn’t compete with the hundred year old histories of many of the other clans. So the true pillars of the clan’s strength were Tianxiong Lie and Tianxiong Daoyun.
The news of the Tianxiong clan’s extermination quickly made its way around Wake City and shocked it to its core. This piece of information had been even bigger than when the Zhou clan was exterminated.
After everyone found out that the Tianxiong clan had been killed off, Jian Chen’s name had quickly soared to prominence so that practically no one in the city did not know him and everyone knew of his deeds. In the time span of two days, Jian Chen had destroyed the Zhou Mercenaries and Zhou Clan before then destroying the Tianxiong clan. Not only that, but he had then subdued two clan elders and five captains of their own respective mercenary groups. With this shocking piece of information, absolutely no one could believe it at first.