Wang Xiaoyun rushed at them with her fan brandished. She looked like a green blur as she sped towards their pursuers.
Seeing her take such an action, Xue Wei smirked wryly and rushed forward as well.
Inner Might – Sword!
Windwolf Sword Slash!
Xue Wei released a crescent blade of sword energy that was sent toward the closest opponent, placing the many pursuers between a rock and a hard place.
They had never expected that their targets would fight back like this and many of them started to feel uncomfortable.
A few tried to escape, but then they realized that the hunters had become the hunted, they had been lured out and it frightened them quite a bit.
Unfortunately, they could no longer back out. They had initiated the pursuit and now they had to battle for survival.
“Try this!” Xue Wei suddenly called out. A paper he had been holding for some time lit up.
He tossed it at the group with seven people, and grinned.
The paper grew brighter and brighter before a resounding boom sounded out through the entire alleyway and the houses on both sides shook.
A massive crater had been opened in the ground, and three of the seven experts were laying within it, dead and without a complete corpse.
“Oh, better than I thought,” Xue Wei muttered when he saw the damage that his Spiritual Energy Bomb did to the surroundings and his enemies.
“Retreat!” The pursuers were not the least bit unsure of their next move. They had to escape as soon as possible, because the boom would have alerted the authorities and the guards were likely to arrive at any moment.
“Think we’ll let you go like that?” Xue Wei sent them his most brilliant smile as he picked up another piece of paper.
He poured a bit of qi into this paper and then threw it into the air. Suddenly everything stilled and all the experts beneath the Heavenly Warrior rank felt their bodies freeze for a moment.
The formation he had used was a crowd controlling formation that would freeze anyone in range beneath his spiritual energy rank for a second.
Although a second did not sound like much, that one second was lethal when taking the onslaught of Xue Wei’s team of four into consideration.
All of them had their own movement techniques and they used them to flash from one person to another, executing them on the spot.
The Heavenly Warriors had long since realized that this was a formation, which made their eyes alternate between fear and greed.
They retreated slightly, still their greed was getting the better of them, wanting them to return to the battle. What if he had even stronger formations?
Not to mention that the guards would arrive soon. The guards were not to be trifled with; they walked in groups of ten and all ten were Heavenly Warriors. Some of the squads even had Ordinary Knights amongst them.
“I have some friends that could help me if I am sent to jail,” one of them muttered to himself, and it seemed the others had the same idea to use their connections to try and get their hands on Xue Wei’s wealth.
Right as they retreated, a group of guards arrived at the location. There were seventeen corpses on the ground. Some of them were Heavenly Warriors, while the rest were Sky Warriors. All of them had died.
Four experts were still alive. Three of them were Sky Warriors and the last one seemed to be a Heavenly Warrior.
“What happened here?!” the captain of the guards roared. He had already decided that Xue Wei and his companions were the culprits. They had clearly killed someone, so they were to be arrested.
“Tie them up!” he yelled to his men. Xue Wei’s eyes flashed dangerously the moment he did.
“You don’t even know what happened and you are tying us up? This is self-defense, and in fact, I ought to have a conversation with your director of the Golden Chambers here in Golden Crow City. I was scared to death. Was it not for our beneficial deal just before, I would not want to continue the business deal I have with them,” Xue Wei said.
“Who do you think you are?!” The guard captain was furious. “What makes you think you can talk with the director as you please? It is against the law to slander the Golden Chambers!”
“Throw them in jail!”
The other three looked at Xue Wei curiously. How would he react? But his final decision was to simply shrug his shoulders. “Let’s follow for now. I’d like to see this captain’s face when he realizes what he has done.”
After getting their hands cuffed, they were led to the prison. Underway, the captain felt oddly uncomfortable when he noticed how cooperative they were.
It was as if everything was within their grasp. The captain turned more and more hostile. He led them through the most packed and busy place in the city to publicly shame them, but Xue Wei held his head high.
“Ye Xiao?” Suddenly, the voice of the Cerulean Starlight Sect’s leader emerged from the sidelines. The captain was about to flare up until he saw the outfits that represented the Cerulean Starlight Sect.
“Oh, right! It is fortunate that I ran into you. Could I trouble you to inform Manager Hu of this?” Xue Wei grinned. “The old captain refuses to listen to me, so I have to get ahold of that old director one way or another. I’ll give you something great later if you help me.”
The man frowned. This was obviously an independent cultivator, so how could he possibly have something that would make the head disciple of a major sect’s branch in the Skyward Empire run an errand for him?
“We’ll do it,” Lin Yuelong was the one to speak. The head disciple frowned, but he said nothing against it. He was suddenly reminded, that Xue Wei had been admitted to the King’s Floor, even though he was an independant cultivator. It was clear that he held a myriad of secrets.
The captain could not understand how bringing this Ye Xiao to the main street would benefit him. It was enough to make him flare up even more than before.
“Don’t talk with the prisoners!” he sneered, and pulled on the rope.
Xue Wei grinned when he saw the anger on the captain’s face, but said nothing.
They were brought out of the main street, the prison their destination. Lin Yuelong rushed to the Three Legged Golden Crow Hotel under the orders of his head disciple.
Truthfully, Xue Wei and his comrades could have caused a lot of problems if they wanted. They could easily break the ropes but the guards were all high ranked Heavenly Warriors, so running away was impossible. At the same time, Xue Wei was quite entertained with their current situation.
After they arrived in the prison building, the four were placed in separate cells. Their storage rings were not confiscated, and they were not treated badly by the other staff, but the captain was furious.
“Split them up! They are dangerous criminals! Take their items and let them starve!”
“Captain, they are not convicted of anything yet. We cannot do so.”
“I am saying that they are guilty. We have to punish them; I saw them commit murder with my own two eyes!”
“We still do not know the motive or whether or not they acted in self-defense.”
The prison warden was very fair and Xue Wei was shocked when he heard their discussion.
The captain felt insulted by Xue Wei’s undisturbed calm and pride to a degree where he now hated him. He was a thorn in his side and he wished him dead as soon as possible.
The prison warden was much fairer in comparison. He was not going to stand down because of the captain's anger. In fact, he felt that something had gone terribly wrong when he saw the casual expression on Xue Wei’s face.
As he expected – not even ten minutes after he had finally managed to pacify the captain – an unexpected guest appeared.
“I heard you have just taken a young man into custody?” The voice was filled with authority and slight anger.
“We did. He is accused of murdering innocent citizens.” The prison warden described what the captain had told him, but he was given a snort in response.
“In an alleyway? You think that innocent citizens appear in such alleyways?” He sneered angrily. The warden was perplexed. “An alleyway?” he asked with confusion. He had not received sufficient information on the murders, so he was now tongue-tied.
“Release them at once!” The director was furious. If something went wrong and Xue Wei decided to withdraw the formations from the auction, they would be forced to put their own formations up for sale to not destroy their reputation. That was something he did not wish to see.
“But sir, they killed a group of citizens,” the warden said hesitatingly. “File it as self-defense,” the director replied casually.
The warden was shocked. He had never before seen the director acting like this before. Now that he was, he could only guess that the young man had something to rely on.
“Who is he?” the warden asked with a trembling voice. The director gave him a long glance before answering.
“He is a soaring dragon that will grow to be a shining star on our continent.” The director had no doubt about this. To be a formation master at such a young age was already outstanding, but it seemed he also had the strength to rival martial artists of the same cultivation rank.
The prison warden was shocked and felt uncomfortable. If he was that outstanding, would he not hold a grudge against them? Would it not be the same as asking for a beating to go against him? But he did not dare to say anything because the director rushed to the cell to open the gates himself.
“Young master Ye Xiao, we are very sorry for the way you were treated! Please excuse the guards, they knew no better.”
“I do not blame the warden,” Xue Wei said while smiling casually, “but the captain is definitely not suited for a position with power. He was willing to break the rules for personal revenge. I feel he should be let go.”
The director knew that someone had to take the blame for what had happened, and putting all the blame on the guard captain who caused this was just perfect.
So he quickly approved and nodded his head. “He will be stripped of his captain title and become a mere guard again. Now please leave this dreadful place with me.”
The director had been given an additional formation from Manager Hu so he knew that this young man had more formations. If he did it right, then he might be able to get a few more.
Xue Wei had not had the time to go shopping, but hours had already gone by.
“Let us return to the hotel,” he said, sighing. “We will do some shopping tomorrow. I have to hand over my token of appreciation to the Cerulean Starlight Sect.”
“This all seemed very pointless,” Hei Gou said, also sighing. “We wasted a lot of time and you are giving away a formation because of it.”
“It’s not wasted,” Bai Tianyi said with a smirk on his face. “Now the guards will not dare to touch us no matter how we behave.
“And gifting a formation to the Cerulean Starlight Sect has always been his plan. He just needed a reason to do so.”
“Why would he want to gift a formation?” Wang Xiaoyun asked curiously. This time, Xue Wei answered.
“Of the three great sects, they are the only ones I don’t have bad blood with. A relationship with them will prove beneficial as long as I pretend I am Ye Xiao.”