“Hmm?” Dongbo Xueying raised his head and saw a dense hail of arrows flying toward him. Each arrowhead gleamed with a cold metallic sheen as they tore through the air, extremely powerful.
“You’re truly overestimating yourself,” Dongbo Xueying said, as quick as lightning he drew out the two sections of his spear from the weapon case on his back.
Whoosh!
Each section of the spear was over a meter long. Dongbo Xueying casually swung them a bit in his hands. Because his snow-white steed was galloping so fast, only about a dozen arrows actually reached his front. With a swing of his spear, the arrows were shattered and deflected one after another with a series of plops. Not a single arrow even touched Dongbo Xueying or his steed.
Then, Dongbo Xueying instantly leapt off his snow-white steed and charged straight up the mountain, simultaneously connecting the two sections of his spear.
“He’s tough. Retreat!” The chief bandit leader above was alarmed by Dongbo Xueying’s calm and effortless deflection of the arrows, realizing he was no easy opponent.
Hiss!
“Chief!”
“Not good—”
“We’re in big trouble!”
The chief bandit leader and the others, along with the bandits, were all terrified.
They looked down in horror as the black-clothed young man who had dismounted leapt into the air like a black shadow. Although he was dashing up the steep mountainside, his speed was so fast it made their hearts tremble and their legs go weak with fear. Too fast! Unbelievably fast! They were on a high mountain, at least nearly two hundred meters above the ground.
The steep and rugged path should have made climbing difficult, and logically they should have had enough time to retreat.
But in reality, the speed at which the black-clothed youth rushed up was terrifying. Rocks and trees were no obstacles, nor were the sloped, steep cliffs. He dashed through the forest faster than the snow-white steed had galloped along the main road. The bandits could barely see the young man’s exact figure; they could only see a blurred black afterimage.
“How could we possibly encounter a named-level expert?” The chief bandit leader instantly felt his head was about to explode. Sweat soaked his clothes, and his legs turned weak. “He’s this fast even on a mountain. He must be a named-level expert! Silver Moon Knights aren’t this fast. I could at least see their figures clearly and stand a chance against them.”
“There are only so many named-level experts in Qinghe Prefecture. Where did he come from? Where did he come from?”
“How could this happen?”
“No, no…”
The chief bandit leader refused to accept the reality before him. Desperation and fear surged through him. He had no thought of resistance at all because the gap was just too vast.
A Meteor Knight might still have a chance against a Silver Moon Knight…
But against a named-level expert, a Silver Moon Knight would usually be killed in a single strike! Even a Silver Moon-level archmage would find himself unable to cast spells in the face of a named-level expert.
From this, one could see—
How powerful a named-level expert was! They represented the pinnacle of human capability, a one-man army! A Meteor Knight would be utterly helpless against a named-level expert!
“Mercy, mercy, please spare me, great sir!” The burly, ferocious chief bandit leader suddenly knelt down and begged for mercy.
Peng!
A spear shadow suddenly swept horizontally. The chief bandit leader’s face turned fearful, but he had no time to react. The spear struck his chest directly, BOOM! His chest caved in, his internal organs shattered. He flew backward like a broken sandbag, smashing into a distant tree, which snapped with a loud crash. The chief bandit leader fell down, blood spewing from his mouth, his eyes wide with shock, already dead.
“Run!”
“Run for your lives!” The other leaders and bandits were completely panicked. They scattered in all directions immediately, like creatures from different tiers encountering each other. Though they outnumbered the other side, each of them was gripped by soul-deep fear, with only one thought—escape!
Swish! Swish! Swish!!!
Too fast.
Dongbo Xueying’s speed was incredible. To the eyes of the bound and captured people, he appeared as seven or eight afterimages, as if seven or eight ‘Dongbo Xueyings’ simultaneously attacked with their spears. The bandits were too slow to even react, and even if they tried, it was useless. Plop! Plop! Plop! Including two other Star-Level Knight leaders and one barely managed to cast a spell Sky-Level mage… all were pierced by the long spear!
As for the spells? These pathetic magical attacks, which turned into sharp blades, were directly dispersed under the high-pressure air currents created by Dongbo Xueying’s swinging spear. They couldn’t even touch the spear shaft.
He killed more than thirty bandits in a row.
The remaining bandits scattered in all directions, some running down the mountain, some up, in every possible direction. Dongbo Xueying didn’t bother chasing them anymore! After all, once the core members of a powerful bandit gang were eliminated, the remaining small fry wouldn’t amount to much.
“Hmm?” Dongbo Xueying scanned the corpses of the most dangerous bandit leaders. His senses to the outside world had become more acute. As he walked near the corpses, he noticed that the chief bandit leader’s arm ring was a storage treasure.
He lightly tapped the tip of his spear.
Dang.
The arm ring was immediately shaken off the arm by the force of the spear tip, then the spear flicked it up, and it flew into Dongbo Xueying’s hand.
“Great sir, save us.”
“Great sir, save us all.” The bound and captured figures, including some elderly men, middle-aged men, and a pair of young boy and girl in fine clothes, looked at him with hope. They feared that after this powerful being left, the bandits might capture them again.
“Plop! Plop! Plop…” Dongbo Xueying walked over, casually swung his spear, and the sharp thin blade on the spearhead sliced through the ropes. In an instant, the dozen or so people were freed.
“Great sir, thank you for saving our lives.” An old man with a white beard bowed respectfully, and quietly ordered the others beside him, “Gather up the valuables and present them to the great sir.”
“Yes.”
The merchants were all shrewd individuals. Immediately, they collected the valuable goods the bandits had looted, as well as the gold notes and other valuables from the bandit corpses. Soon, a large pile was formed, including a bunch of star-piercing crossbows and many gold coins and notes.
“Great sir, these are all the bandits’ belongings. We also offer these goods to you as a token of gratitude for saving our lives.” The old man with the white beard said respectfully.
Dongbo Xueying glanced over.
The thick stack of gold notes was indeed quite valuable. Mainly because the other two Star-Level Knights of the Cold Jade Eight Eagles didn’t have storage treasures, and they carried their money and belongings on them.
“Alright.” Dongbo Xueying readily accepted the large stack of gold notes, which were worth about eighty to ninety thousand gold coins. “As for the other things, you can keep them yourselves. Take the star-piercing crossbows too; they might help you protect yourselves. Where is the rest of your merchant caravan? What about your horses?”
“All the others are dead. The horses were left ahead. The Cold Jade Eight Eagles didn’t care about those horses,” the old man with the white beard replied.
“Hmm.”
Dongbo Xueying nodded. “Hurry up and move. I’ll take you out of the Cold Jade Mountain Gorge. After that, I won’t be responsible for you anymore.”
“Thank you, great sir! Thank you, great sir!” The old man with the white beard knelt down and kowtowed, and the others also knelt in gratitude. The Cold Jade Mountain was full of bandits, and without Dongbo Xueying, it would be hard for them, with their old and young members, to survive and leave the gorge.
“Hurry up, or I won’t wait for you.” Dongbo Xueying had already leapt down. From a height of nearly two hundred meters, he didn’t care at all and directly jumped down to the ground below. Peng! The ground shook, but he didn’t even bend his knees.
“Not bad.” Dongbo Xueying refined the storage treasure. Its space was a bit smaller than his mother’s. “The total gold notes from these bandit leaders add up to over one hundred and fifty thousand gold coins! My Xue Shi Castle is in need of money, and now I’ve gained such a fortune.”
In recent years, he had earned nearly one hundred thousand gold coins by selling Shadow Leopard fur and other materials. However, when his younger brother broke through to become a formal mage, Dongbo Xueying had given him a relatively good storage treasure and a mage’s staff. The mage’s staff wasn’t expensive, costing only about five thousand gold coins, since his brother’s power was still weak, and a more powerful staff would be useless for him. But the storage treasure had a large space, costing over fifty thousand gold coins! It was even larger than the one his mother had.
When Dongbo Xueying reached the level of a named warrior, he changed his inner armor to a second-tier alchemical armor, which could at least protect his vital body parts during battles with named warriors.
He also changed some of his clothes and boots to alchemical items, which were relatively cheaper. Only the inner armor was expensive, costing thirty thousand gold coins!
Therefore, Dongbo Xueying was currently a bit short on funds.
A warrior of named-level strength…
Yet rejoicing over a sum of one hundred thousand gold coins. If other named-level warriors knew of this, they would probably laugh at him. After all, what was the status of a named-level warrior?
…
After leading those dozen or so survivors out of the Cold Jade Mountain Gorge, Dongbo Xueying no longer paid attention to them and rode his snow-white steed at full speed.
They galloped all the way and stayed overnight in ‘Huanglong City’ that night.
Early the next morning, they continued their journey and finally reached Qinghe Prefecture City by evening.
“It’s been two full days. I’ve finally arrived. Is this Qinghe Prefecture City?” Dongbo Xueying looked from afar. In the distance, a magnificent city stretched out, so vast that its end could not be seen with the naked eye. The city walls were made of grayish-white rock, with countless ravines marking its long history. The walls were a hundred meters high! A hundred-meter-high wall was like a mountain.
On the magnificent city walls, a black sphere was erected every mile, each adorned with golden patterns. The entire grand city exuded an invisible force, though ordinary people could not sense it. Dongbo Xueying, with his extremely sensitive perception of energy, was able to detect it.
Qinghe Prefecture City had a permanent population of over ten million! Its history was even longer than that of the Longshan Empire.
In fact, provincial and prefectural cities usually had long histories. Dynasties might change, but these ancient cities were continuously reinforced, and their magical arrays became increasingly powerful. Provincial capitals were even more astonishing, with permanent populations in the hundreds of millions. These cities were so grand and mighty that they were like independent kingdoms. It was said that even divine powers could not shake the defenses of provincial capitals.
“It’s truly an eye-opener. I can feel that if the entire magical array of Qinghe Prefecture City were to activate, the power unleashed by each of those spheres might instantly kill me. This is completely supernatural power,” Dongbo Xueying marveled, though he didn’t know how enormous the consumption would be to activate such a grand array even once.
“Enter the city.”
Riding his snow-white steed, Dongbo Xueying entered the magnificent Qinghe Prefecture City.
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