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Monarch of Equality glowered at Shiloh, who was hiding behind Li De, and shouted:

“Monarch of Qin Guang, let’s use formations since we aren’t able to win against him! A three-man formation might not be as strong as a ten-man formation, but with that burden dragging him down, how strong can he really be? He’s damaged my Dragon Blood Mist, so I want to use his blood to refine some poison today!”

Monarch of Clear River clutched his stomach as he spoke in agreement:

“Monarch of Qin Guang, if we don’t act now, it’ll be too late!”

Monarch of Qin Guang squinted and sized Li De and Shiloh up for a moment before nodding:

“Let us form the formation, then.”

What use would it be even if you did cultivate some Path to Level 10? When all of the Ten Temple Hell Kings assemble, even a Level 10 expert might not necessarily be able to kill us. Even if there is currently only I, First Temple: Monarch of Qin Guang, Second Temple: Monarch of Clear River, and Ninth Temple: Monarch of Equality, we are still able to carry out a three-man formation, which should be more than enough to deal with such an inexperienced kid like you.

Monarch of Qin Guang flipped the sword in his hand and stabbed it into the soil. Then, the trio simultaneously closed their eyes. When they opened their eyes again, a strange black mist began emitting off of their bodies. The sky instantly turned pitch-black; it wasn’t that dark clouds covered the sky, but rather that the light of the moon and stars suddenly disappeared. Within this area of blackness, Shiloh tightly gripped onto the hem of Li De’s shirt. But after thinking to herself a little, she quietly loosened her grip.

She was unwilling to burden him.

She didn’t expect that Li De would actually take her hand after she let go and tell her with a smile:

“It’s okay.”

He gave it some thought and added:

“I might not be able to defeat a group of ten, but I can give three people a try.”

The overwhelming darkness embezzled all the light in the world, as if ravaging disasters and fierce beasts had swallowed everything into their stomachs. In the rustling of the chilly wind, Shiloh wasn’t able to see anything or hear anything else. Everything in her surroundings was extremely quiet and such an environment caused her to suddenly feel that her power in the Assassin Path was nothing more than a sham. Level 7 at greater perfection appeared very strong, but it was merely a bluff to scare others away. In front of the absolute power that her teachers were showing, everything she possessed seemed so ridiculous.

Sound, sight, aura; all of these things were entirely cut off. Only a true assassin would be able to achieve such a feat.

Even Li De was relegated to looking around in an attempt to find a weak point.

But he was doomed to be disappointed since there were no weak points.

He was actually deceiving them just then. Li De simply hadn’t seen through Monarch of Clear River’s attack at that time; he just made an educated guess. Because Monarch of Clear River moved closer to the window back then, he speculated that Monarch of Clear River would launch a surprise attack from the roof of the building. In contrast, Monarch of Equality’s were dyed purple by her frequent contact with poisons, so Li De was able to surmise that she would be using poison against him. Due to all his guesses being correct, Monarch of Clear River mistakenly thought that he had been seen through and hastily launched his offensive. Such a rash move turned the situation in Li De’s favor as having a frontal confrontation with an assassin was his most favorite thing to do.

Monarch of Qin Guang noticed this point.

That’s why the trio covered the shine of the moon and stars when gathering to make a formation this time. Adding onto the fact that their surroundings was now a relatively open space, there was simply no way for him to determine their specific locations. After suffering that loss from just before, the trio decided not to respond to whatever Li De did to swindle them into exposing themselves. With this being the case, Li De pulled on Shiloh’s hand and brought her to quietly squat down. Then, he told Shiloh:

“Cover your ears.”

Shiloh obediently covered her ears.

Li De breathed in a mouthful of air, then lifted up his hand and rapped on the ground thrice as if he were knocking on a door.

When the sound of the third knock faded away, the ground suddenly split open.

It started out as a small seam at first, but then it suddenly expanded with an earthquake-like tremor. The entire courtyard instantly turned into unstable land with crevices extending towards the city and all the bricks and soil within a range of several kilometers were jolted into the air like an out-of-control fountain.

Then, Li De softly spoke:

“From the moment I became aware of your existences, it was ordained that you would have nowhere to hide. The core of the so-called Assassin Path lies in concealment out of the main scene, to disguise oneself as a pig to devour tigers, and not deceive oneself upon being faced with a desperate situation. It’s not that you three don’t understand these words……rather, you three have all become too arrogant.”

From within the blown up soil, a smooth and round sword light sliced through the dust and the three great assassins joined forces to kill him.

Inside this land of darkness, no one was able to make out who the other person was.

There was the sound of a sword entering someone’s body, there was the sound of a fist smashing someone’s bones into pieces.

The fight only lasted for a second, but Shiloh wasn’t able to count how many moves were exchanged between the four individuals because they were too quick.

Afterwards, it turned deathly silent.

Another short while later, the shine from the stars and moon gradually reappeared.

Blood stained an entire half of Li De’s face and a dagger was nailed into his right shoulder. Along the rib from his left shoulder to right shoulder, there was a long and deep gash. His left hand hung limp from his arm, his wrist bone seemingly to have been broken. Yet with all these wounds, his right-hand had stayed holding Shiloh’s hand without letting go for a single instant throughout the entire encounter.

Monarch of Qin Guang, Monarch of Clear River, and Monarch of Equality all sustained wounds.

Monarch of Clear River was the most injured, as he was half-kneeling on the ground. In contrast, Monarch of Equality was the least injured, but her face was dark with pain and her entire body was trembling. The sword in Monarch of Qin Guang’s hand was broken, as was the right arm holding the sword. His stomach was also sunken in abnormally and a trace of a bitter smile appeared on his indifferent face.

Li De calmly asked:

“Do you want to continue fighting?”

The word resentment was written across Monarch of Equality’s face as she cursed:

“May you not have an easy death!”

Monarch of Clear River took a glance at Shiloh, who was biting her lips behind Li De, and replied:

“You win this round. But you will still lose in the end since our Ten Temple Hell Kings are comprised of 10 people, which is enough to kill you. Even if you win by some miracle, our Lingwu still has the Lingwu’s Three Guards as well as 80,000 armored cavalry, 150,000 armored martial soldiers, and our old master at Level 10 in the Sword Path. The most important thing is that we have our omnipotent ruler. You can’t win, little kid. There are some people in this world that you can’t afford to offend. You should rid yourself of the thought that you can come to the aid of someone suffering an injustice just by relying on your youthful hotblooded zeal. How much can you, a single person, accomplish?”

Li De turned his gaze to Monarch of Qin Guang, to which Monarch of Qin Guang responded insipidly:

“Shiloh is our Hidden Guard’s person, so we have the right to give and take away her life. Moreover, she’s defected to the enemy even though she’s clearly our person, so shouldn’t such a person to killed? Sir City Lord, you must think things through clearly. Since she’s able to betray Hidden Guard today, then maybe she’ll betray you tomorrow. Our, Hidden Guard’s, act of cleaning up our faction had nothing to do with sir City Lord in the first place, so sir City Lord must be more reasonable.”

“Reasonable?”

The corners of Li De’s mouth curled upwards in a smirk. Under the moonlight, his smile appeared extremely carefree even though there were obvious wounds on him.

He tilted his head and swept the three assassins present with cold, unsmiling eyes, and stated:

“You want to bring up reason once you’re unable to defeat me? Fine then, listen well. In West-Resisting City, I, Li De, am the supreme reason!”

Monarch of Qin Guang, Monarch of Clear River, and Monarch of Equality went silent.

Only Shiloh pulled on his clothes hem and whispered:

“This is Rivet City.”

Li De awkwardly “oh”-ed, thought for a bit, then said:

“It’ll be part of West-Resisting City’s domain sooner or later anyway.”

Monarch of Qin Guang coldly said:

“You really want to make war against Lingwu?”

A spell of silence later, Li De heaved a sigh and replied:

“If I had no cares, then I wouldn’t give a rats *** about anything in the entirety of Eternal Heaven State, let alone Lingwu. But that’s out of question for my current self. For West-Resisting City, I am willing to make a transaction with Lingwu.

At this moment, Frost walked over gracefully and stood before Shiloh before she sneered:

“Lingwu is not lacking money, put away your act.”

Li De didn’t say a word in response. Instead, he took out a bamboo tube from his waist, threw it before Frost’s feet, and indifferently remarked:

“Bring that back to your Overlord of Lingwu so that she may take a look at it. Tell her that I, Li De, want to buy Shiloh’s life and establish our West-Resisting City’s Secret Division Organization, so I’ll be troubling her to help me out.”

Frost didn’t go to pick it up. Instead, she disdainfully kicked the bamboo tube and taunted:

“Sir City Lord has quite a lot of self-confidence. Does your honorable self think that you will be able to send us away with such childish tricks?”

To that, Li De yawned and advised:

“I advise you to pick that up. Otherwise, if something happens in the future, you will not be able to shoulder the responsibility.”

With those words spoken, he turned to face Monarch of Qin Guang, Monarch of Equality, and Monarch of Clear River. He told them with a laugh:

“Monarch of Qin Guang aside, both Monarch of Clear River and Monarch of Equality should go back and train yourselves. I had at least three opportunities in killing you all tonight; the reason why you’re still alive is because I’m giving the Overlord of Lingwu some face. In any case, you’ll have to return to Lingwu if you want to request for reinforcements, right? It can’t hurt to pass on my things to the Overlord of Lingwu while you’re at it anyway. After doing so, she will likely bestow some hefty reward upon you.”

The three monarchs were silent for a short while. Then, Monarch of Qin Guang said:

“Frost, pick it up and put it away.”

Frost coldly snorted, picked it up, and stuffed it by her waist. As she did so, she kept muttering:

“Why treat such a broken thing like a treasure.”

Monarch of Qin Guang narrowed his eyes and commented:

“People are coming. With the loud racket we made, the guard should be here soon. Let’s leave.”

With those words said, he gave the covered-in-injuries Li De a deep look.

Once they walked away far enough, Li De spat out a mouthful of blood onto the ground and his body began swaying staggeringly, so Shiloh hurried to help stabilize him.

Li De started coughing violently, his body faintly trembling due to the chilly night wind. His complexion really showed how abnormal his state was; deathly pale and colorless. On one hand, he had lost too much blood while on the other, the influence of the corrosion by Monarch of Equality’s Dragon Mist Poison from his palm wound wasn’t a small one on his body. The main thing was that he had suffered too many moves in order to protect Shiloh. If he had been fighting by himself, he wouldn’t have ended up in such a miserable state.

Shiloh knew this very well in her heart, so she carefully supported him.

Li De grinned. As the duo walked into the dark, Li De began speaking:

“Shiloh, actually, I’ve been lying to you.”

“I know.”

“No, I’m talking about that day when you kidnapped Aleya to threaten me. I said that I would give you an opportunity to kill me, but I was actually lying to you. You see, I, ah, am not someone who kill die because【my heart was pierced through】; even if you really wanted to kill me back then, you wouldn’t have a chance to. If you were to kill me, the only road you had for yourself was to quietly do so.”

“I know.”

“You also knew this?? Forget it……also, about that time, if you really went to kill me, I would make you pay a price. Not because you had murderous intent towards me, but because you involved Aleya; this is something that I will not accept. Even though I said I would give you a chance to kill me, it was actually a test.”

“……I know.”

Li De tilted his head to the side and looked at Shiloh, who was trying her hardest to support him, then asked:

“How come you know everything?”

Shiloh answered:

“I didn’t know at first. But seeing how you were able to beat my teachers tonight, it shows that it would’ve been impossible for me to kill you that day. That’s how I know.”

Li De began chuckling.

Shiloh whispered:

“So I’m far less important than Aleya.”

Li De instantly began coughing and began stammering:

“Now……that’s to say……it’s like this……”

Shiloh held him by the waist and pursed up her lips.

In the shadows of the night, she muttered one word:

“Scumbag.”