“That’s right!”
“The qi that he emanates is not the usual green… It looks like, for some reason or another, he is able to harness a power similar to that of a Connate level practitioner!”
Su Mo thought of this at once.
This young man has definitely not attained Connate-level strength, but there must still be some reason for this ultimate display of power so similar to that of the finest practitioners.
At the very least, he must have practiced to the point of the Great Consummation of the Qi-Gathering.
However, even so, thinking about how close he was to death just a moment ago and recalling that feeling of desperation, he knew in his heart that he would not dare to raise any negative thoughts against the young man.
No matter what the reason, he would not dare to take a risk at incurring the wrath of this young man, considering he was able to harness this amount of power.
The quick decisiveness with which this young man took to kill the Emperor of Yunyang left a sorely deep impression on Su Mo. This youth was definitely an iron-fisted and compassionless young man!
In fact, he felt that chances were, the young man had some other use for him. Otherwise, he would not have spared his life at all.
“It looks like what this man really has is not simply the ordinary Primal Core essence that I assumed he had,” Su Mo thought.
While Su Mo did ponder about this, he did not dare have any intention of obtaining the Primal Core essence from the young man. This was because he knew that if he were to challenge the youth again, there was no way Zhou Donghuang would spare his life another time.
If he were to put himself in the man’s shoes, he could not possibly show mercy time and time again if someone were to try to offend him repeatedly.
Su Mo was truly afraid.
To this day, it had been over 16 years since he had started practicing at the Qi-Gathering level. If he were to throw this all away today, all that effort would have been for nothing at all.
“A wound-healing elixir that he prepared himself?”
Looking at the little medicine bottle in his hand, a feeling of complete disdain stirred up within Su Mo.
Even if this were to be a wound-healing elixir that was left by the Primal Core practitioners, he did not think that it would compare to his very own concoction, much less a concoction prepared by this young man.
“I’ll have to see for myself how good a concoction his wound-healing elixir is. Even if it were to pale in comparison to mine, I have brought some of my own to use.” As Su Mo thought about this, he took off the seal from the medicine bottle, brought it to his lips and consumed its contents.
After a while, the look of disdain he had in his eyes was all but gone and instead was replaced by a look of complete disbelief and wonder.
“This wound-healing elixir… how can it be so effective… and so strong?
“Can a wound-healing elixir even have this level of efficacy? I had always thought that my own concoction was already the best of its kind. To think that there would be a wound-healing elixir of this quality in the world!”
This time, Su Mo was well and truly astounded.
He never would have thought in a million years that there would be a medicine of this level in existence. In fact, this concoction was so strong, it beat his own wound-healing elixir that he knew to be the best in the world, and it beat it by a long shot!
“In my own knowledge, this grade of elixir can only be formulated by the very best of the Primal Core stage practitioners and refined with the healing elements of the Samadhi fires. I never thought that a wound-healing elixir could in fact be this powerful.”
Su Mo could only think that his own elixir, which he had always carried with him, was rubbish compared to the wound-healing elixir he had just consumed.
Su Mo had to acknowledge that the efficacy of this miracle drug that Zhou Donghuang had given him was indeed very strong.
It only took a moment, and Su Mo struggled to sit up. After that, he was already completely mobile and able to move freely.
Before leaving, Su Mo stood in the courtyard in front of the master bedroom and called out respectfully, “My master, I will await your most honored arrival in the Valley of the Medicine Masters!”
“Mm.”
The simple curt response came from within the master bedroom, and Su Mo turned to leave with a pained look on his face.
He completely regretted coming with the Yunyang Emperor, Jiang Tianchen, to provoke a fiend like this, to the point of being forced to call him master.
But he immediately sobered up as he thought of Jiang Tianchen’s dreadful fate.
At least, he was still alive.
Fwoop! Fwoop! Fwoop!
…
As Su Mo was leaving, he did not go towards the main door. Instead, his body seemed to change in shape. With his qi flowing on the surface, he leaped across the walls, and in the blink of an eye, he was soon far from the enclosure.
As a sense of calm and quiet was restored on the grounds, a few maids who kept their distance outside the courtyard, mustered enough courage to open the main doors.
When they saw the lifeless bodies of the Yunyang Emperor, Jiang Tianchen and the Connate demon, the Silver-Crowned Crane, they were not surprised. In the last few months alone, there had already been similar deaths that had occurred in the same courtyard grounds.
However, when Jiang Tianchen’s body was carried out of the guesthouse, and Chuxiu Inn’s keeper invited Xue Meng, leader of the guards of Chu Royal City, to claim Jiang Tianchen’s body, the look on Xue Meng’s face was hard to describe.
As he looked on, his pupils rapidly constricted. “Don’t let anyone touch him. I will call for His Highness immediately!”
Xue Meng left the innkeeper in a hurry and ran out of the Chuxiu Inn. As he rushed toward the Chu royal household, his heart was pounding rapidly.
“Oh heavens!
“That young man, had the cheek to kill the Emperor of Yunyang?”
Xue Meng had been with the Chu king when he saw the Emperor of Yunyang once. It was only the one time, but it was enough for him to remember what he looked like.
And that young man in the courtyard with the dragon robes was for sure the very same emperor that he had seen before—Jiang Tianchen.
“Your Majesty!”
When the Chu king saw Jiang Tianchen’s body after he had hurriedly followed Xue Meng into the Chuxiu Inn, his face drained of color, and he could not help give an involuntary shout.
“Your… Your Majesty?!”
The shout gave the Chuxiu innkeeper a fright.
The innkeeper saw the lifeless body of a young man lying on the ground, clothed in robes that had been stitched with a five-clawed golden dragon. He recognized this instantly as the distinctive emblem of the Yunyang Emperor’s attire.
While he saw all this, he did not dare associate this scene with the likes of His Majesty, the Yunyang Emperor.
The emperor himself, the man at the top. How could he so inexplicably appear in this very inn, dead?
So, he had thought that it was someone else who had deliberately dressed in the dragon robes as a hoax to fool people.
Only until he heard the confirmation come from the Chu royal household’s king’s own mouth did he finally come to terms with the fact. This man whom he thought had dressed in the robes as a joke was in fact the Emperor of Yunyang!
“That young man… He was at odds the Head of the Valley of Medicine Masters!”
The Chuxiu innkeeper was just as elderly as the Chu King and was aware that the young man had killed the Yunyang Emperor. He knew the young man was in for a whole lot of trouble.
The country of Yunyang was under the protection of the Valley of Medicine Masters.
And those in control of the country of Yunyang, was the Yunyang imperial family, the Jiang family. As the head of the Jiang family, the Emperor of Yunyang was naturally under the protection of the Valley of Medicine Masters.
This did not only apply to the Emperor himself, but also any other king of the Sixteen Countries of the Eastern Valley was under the protection of the Valley.
In the past, there had been assassinations of the emperors of old, and the perpetrators were always foreign Connate-level practitioners.
Even then, all those murderers had in turn been killed by the master practitioners of the Valley of Medicine Masters without exception!
Before long, with the Valley safeguarding the Sixteen Countries of the Eastern Valley, no other Connate level practitioner had tried to dethrone the royal families or even attempt to interfere with each country’s affairs.
This was solely because all the Sixteen Countries had come under the protective wing of the Valley of the Medicine Masters.
The strongest clans who dominated the Eastern Valley all resided in the Valley of the Medicine Masters, and within them, Connate-level practitioners roamed aplenty.
At the border of the Sixteen Countries of the Eastern Valley was a large district of land, primarily claimed by the Medicine Masters as their own territory.
“Who else will he kill?”
When Xiang Xiong regained his composure, his face broke out in a bitter smile. As he looked towards the Chuxiu innkeeper, he asked, “Did his majesty go looking for the young man on his own?”
“He was also accompanied by a giant white crane,” replied the Chuxiu innkeeper.
“Take me there, I want to have a look.”
Xiang Xiong was able to spot the white crane that the Chuxiu Innkeeper spoke off fairly quickly. Sure enough, there lay the carcass of the great beast.
“This… this is… the Silver-Crowned Crane?!”
Even though this was the first time that Xiang Xiong lay eyes on the alarmingly huge white crane, he had known that the Valley of the Medicine Masters was in possession of a great Connate demon called the Silver-Crowned Crane.
“Your Highness, this… this can’t be the Connate demon, the Silver-Crowned Crane, the very one owned by the Valley of the Medicine Masters?”
Xue Meng, who was standing by the side, could not help but swallow and spoke with some difficulty in response to Xiang Xiong.
“It most certainly is that very one.”
Xiang Xiong laughed bitterly, saying, “If I were to be so bold, Your Highness, if the Retired Emperor, a Connate-level practitioner, could be killed by the young man, I’m sure the Yunyang Emperor did not attempt to face him on his own.
“He most definitely would have employed some help from the Valley of the Medicine Masters.
“It looks like this Connate demon, which belongs to the Valley of the Medicine Master, was the cavalry that he sent for.
“I guess the only thing was that he did not think that even this Silver-Crowned Crane would be no match for the young man and end up being completely helpless.”
“This Connate demon attained the Connate stage over 20 years ago. If it were to have only just reached the Connate stage recently, its strength would not have been much compared to the Retired Emperor, who had entered the Connate stage a few years earlier.”
As he said this, Xiang Xiong drew in a long breath. “From what I know, this Silver-Crowned Crane was the Head of the Valley of Medicine Masters’ very own mount.
“And now that the Silver-Crowned Crane is dead, the Head of the Valley of the Medicine Masters must be furious. Once that Connate-level practitioner gets angry, he can be more terrible than the emperor of all of the Eastern Valley!”
“This young man, he’s really testing the limit this time!” Xiang Xiong murmured to himself while shaking his head, a look of pity filling his eyes.
“I have also heard that this Connate demon was almost akin to the Valley Head’s family and best friend,” said Xue Meng, feeling the same amount of pity.
Both Xiang Xiong and Xue Meng now felt that this young man named “Zhou Donghuang” was in for some bad luck.
They both empathized with the young man, considering the calamity that was about to befall him.
“Your Highness, what should we do next? Do we immediately send a messenger to notify the Valley Head, or should we send someone to report to the imperial household and let the royal family share the bad news with the Valley Head?” asked Xue Meng.
“Commander Xue, you will personally make a trip down to the imperial city to report at the imperial household. This news… it must be shared with the royal family as soon as possible.
“If we don’t do this, the imperial family might place the blame on the Chu kingdom,” Xiang Xiong said darkly.
“Yes, Master Wang,” Xue Meng responded as he made his leave.
“It won’t be long before this myth created about this young man who can make an enemy of an entire country on his own strength alone… will be completely shattered,” Xiang Xiong murmured quietly as Xue Meng left the inn.
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