Faced with Thunderbolt’s sharp-edged words, Ye Tianxie did not answer. He turned instead and began walking toward the spot where Thunderbolt’s squad stood.

The crowd went quiet all at once.

No anger. No rebuttal. No flying into a rage out of humiliation. Instead he simply walked toward Thunderbolt without a word.

Thunderbolt understood at once that this silent pressure was more terrible than any venomous retort, more terrible than if the man had roared and raised a weapon and charged him. Ye Tianxie came on step by step with no expression at all, and though the faint cold smile stayed on Thunderbolt’s face, the beat of his heart had already quickened noticeably.

Had Ye Tianxie been goaded into losing his composure and attacking in anger, the onlookers would have watched coldly and privately mocked both sides. Battle Soul Hall’s people could have fought back then, or fled — and fleeing at that point would have been perfectly normal, nothing anyone would look down on, because Xietian’s strength was there for all to see, and any sensible person knew that standing and taking it in a situation like that was for brainless brutes. Withdraw, then face him again when you have the numbers: that was the correct choice. A twelve-man party could not possibly deal with him — but Battle Soul Hall had tens of thousands of members even as things stood, so were they truly to be cowed by one Xietian?!

But Ye Tianxie showed not the slightest sign of attacking in anger. He simply came calmly closer… and the atmosphere on the ground turned oppressive under those unhurried footsteps. Battle Soul Hall’s people were sweating from head to foot. In a situation like this, facing a Xietian who was not attacking, only approaching, to retreat would be nothing but naked fear — and with this many alliance-faction players watching, their reputation would be ground under Ye Tianxie’s heel. Because from then on everyone would know that the whole of Battle Soul Hall, Hall Master included, had been scared off by Xietian outright… and at the same time, all of Thunderbolt’s grand talk from a moment ago would become a joke.

But if they did not retreat… if Xietian came close and then suddenly attacked, how would they escape? The video of him killing thirty-odd Battle Soul Hall members the day before was still tearing across the internet. With a stride like that, to say he killed ten men in a single step would not have been an exaggeration.

These were not simple foot soldiers but Battle Soul Hall’s elite, the chief Hall Master among them. How could they allow a thing like this to happen? If the Hall Master were killed, it would be no small blow to the whole of Battle Soul Hall’s name, its Renown, and its morale.

“Xietian — humiliated into a rage, are you? Come to show us what backs all that arrogance?” Thunderbolt spoke through a cold smile; and as Ye Tianxie drew nearer, he began to feel that those footsteps were falling not on the ground but on his heart.

A man who could hold up an organization like Battle Soul Hall was hardly a simple character, and the toughness of Thunderbolt’s mind ran well past most men’s. Yet the alarm inside him now was violent, and what pressed down on his heart was not only Xietian’s strength but a kind of heavy presence coming off him.

If Ye Tianxie had spoken — whether the answer was yes or no — this oppressiveness would have eased, and Thunderbolt could have responded at once. But Ye Tianxie still did not speak, and still came a step closer, and another, the cold smile at his mouth there and not there. Everywhere he went, the players beside him shifted aside on reflex and opened a path for him.

Sweat had begun to stand out on Thunderbolt’s forehead, and in a situation like this the other Battle Soul Hall members did not dare speak up unbidden. At last Thunderbolt let out a roar. “Friends! This Xietian plainly doesn’t count a single one of us as worth looking at — who here can swallow that?! Let’s strike together and finish him, and let him learn what arrogance costs in front of us!”

“Rrrraah!!“

What followed was excruciatingly awkward. The only response came from the twelve Battle Soul Hall members behind him; from everyone else there was still dead silence, and most of them, in fact, turned looks of open amusement on Thunderbolt and sneered at what he had shouted.

Afraid of Xietian? No — if it came to that, very few of the people present genuinely feared Ye Tianxie’s strength. To men who each commanded massive organizations and alliances of their own, one man’s strength was not really worth fearing. But every sensible one of them knew which people you leave alone if leaving them alone is an option, and that even if you cannot make a friend of someone, it is better not to make an enemy.

The strength Tian Moxie had shown in those days was terrible proof of it already. Which individual, which faction, had ever provoked him and come out of it well? In the World of Fate, Tian Moxie still hung high on the Level Ranking, but unlike his high-profile, sinister style of old, he seemed to have deliberately gone quiet: to this day there had been no rumors about him, and no one had so much as reported seeing him. And now Xietian’s level stood above even Tian Moxie’s, with momentum that plainly threatened to outstrip his as well. If Tian Moxie could not be provoked, how could Xietian be?

And so Thunderbolt’s call to arms drew not one response from anyone but his own people. That shout had also exposed his cowardice and his fear completely.

Thunderbolt’s brows knotted and his hands clenched, but the last of his composure held him back from saying anything furious, which would inevitably have offended every person there. Looking at Ye Tianxie, now within ten meters of him, that gaze of his — always calm before — finally flickered with threads of wariness and venomous cold. He raised a hand, working to keep his voice steady. “Forget it. We’re leaving!”

Battle Soul Hall’s people took it like a reprieve and produced their Town Portal Scrolls to a man. Under Xietian’s silent pressure, Battle Soul Hall had collapsed — and having collapsed, keeping their lives became the first priority. But just as Thunderbolt was about to crush his scroll, Ye Tianxie, still a full five meters away, suddenly appeared in front of him like a bolt of lightning traveling sideways, the Hour of Fate rising in the same motion, and coming down.

Bang!!

-1392!

Thunderbolt, caught entirely off guard, had no time even to form the intention of reacting before Dragon Rend Slash smashed him flat to the ground, and that damage figure past a thousand sent a shiver through every player who saw it.

Attack power like that could plainly one-shot any player at this stage of the game, Guardians included. And that dash a moment ago, near enough to teleportation, was enough to shame even the Assassin, the most mobile class of all.

There was no suspense about it: Thunderbolt, Hall Master of Battle Soul Hall, was one-shot. And in the instant his body became a corpse, it meant a blood feud between Ye Tianxie and the whole of Battle Soul Hall that would end only in death. Making enemies was not what he wanted, nor was it something he feared; he simply did whatever he wanted to do and killed whomever he wanted to kill, with no calculation in it at all. Who he offended, what consequences it brought down, what chain reaction came next — none of it concerned him in the slightest. This came from his nature, and it rested on his strength.

“Since you had the nerve to speak to me so rudely — did you think you could leave without my permission?” Ye Tianxie put the Hour of Fate away, spared Thunderbolt’s corpse not a single extra glance, turned, and said it slowly in a low, contemptuous voice.

In the instant Ye Tianxie moved, six Battle Soul Hall members had already portaled out. The remaining five, seeing their Hall Master one-shot before they could react at all, stood frozen where they were…

“Big Brother!” Thunderstorm, who had been hiding behind other people the whole time, finally came running out with a shout. Having been killed back from level thirteen to level eleven by Ye Tianxie the day before, he could not possibly have been free of all fear of the man, and so he had never dared come forward, terrified that another sudden strike would drop the levels he had ground out so painfully in the blink of an eye. Watching Thunderbolt’s corpse dissolve into white light, whether out of fear or out of some remaining sense, he did not send anyone forward to attack Ye Tianxie. He pointed at him and shouted instead, “Xietian! You dared kill my big brother… Battle Soul Hall and you will not live under the same sky!! We’re going!”

At that shout, every last one of Battle Soul Hall’s people portaled out. Battle Soul Hall had meant to ride the moment and claw something back from Xietian, and instead, in that short a span, had taken another bad tumble. Not only were they left with egg on their faces — their Hall Master Thunderbolt had been one-shot in front of several thousand people.

With Battle Soul Hall’s people gone, the oppressive atmosphere finally dispersed. Ye Tianxie gave a cold snort and walked toward the magic seal under the eyes of the surrounding crowd, as though not another soul existed.

Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap!

The sound of applause rose in the quiet, and a man in black clothing — upright of build, his bearing and presence a cut above the ordinary — came out of the crowd clapping and smiling. As he came out, eleven people followed close at his heels.

“Truly, hearing the name is nothing to meeting the man. Brother Xietian’s arrogance, and the clean efficiency of it — genuinely admirable.” He stopped in front of Xietian and delivered the compliment with a smile. That face, with its light smile spread across it, made it impossible to feel the slightest dislike for him.

“Arrogance without strength behind it is just courting death. Wouldn’t you agree?” Ye Tianxie halted and regarded the man in front of him without expression. He had no need to look at the name to know who this was. It was the first time they had met in the World of Fate, but before this he had seen him more than once.

Pact Master of the Divine Domain Pact — son of Dugu Xiong, supreme overlord of the underground powers of southern Huaxia — the Son of God, Dugu Cheng — Zangshen!

His appearance turned the surroundings quieter still. Because in the game world and in the real world alike, he was one of the people it was least advisable to provoke.

Underground power, seen from another angle, could be called the underworld; but strictly speaking, underground power encompasses the underworld. Over several generations of growth, the claws and teeth of the Dugu family’s power had come to enclose the entire South. In Huaxia, at the mention of the Zuo family every face turned respectful and grave; at the mention of the Su family every thumb went up, in praise of Su Luo’s heaven-sent genius in shouldering a vast commercial empire single-handed; and at the mention of the Dugu family and the Yun family… every last face changed color.

Where there is white there is necessarily black, and the underworld is destined never to be rooted out — this may be called a settled law. Even for the government, a great many things have to be accomplished through underground channels. And compared with the political houses, the commercial houses, even the mysterious ancient martial and esper houses, the ones that frightened people most, and that they were most wary of, were beyond question powers of exactly this kind. The Dugu family were the underground kings of the South, shunned and feared by all, because they could act without a shred of restraint and in disregard of the law. To offend the Dugu family’s power was no different from offending the god of death in the dark.

(End of Chapter 184)