Sword Among Us

“I’m sorry, Big Brother Thunder, everyone… It’s my fault.” After he was resurrected in a Guanlin Temple, Little North resolutely gave a ninety degree bow while looking incredibly regretful and guilty. Thunderous Battle and the group looked absolutely dumbfounded.

They looked at each other and did not understand what was going on.

“What do you mean, it’s your fault?”

“What did you do?” The group looked up while they were meditating. They were absolutely flabbergasted as they looked at Little North.

Little North remained bowing to apologize, and he said loudly, “If I weren’t for me, we wouldn’t have gone to look for Dongfang Bubai and the alliance master, wouldn’t have run into this, and wouldn’t have had our entire team destroyed. If I had just joined all of you in digging out the tunnel to the desert palace…”

As they listened to Little North’s explanation, looks of realization appeared on their faces. At the same time, they rolled their eyes in resignation.

“Sigh… And here I thought you had done something monstrous. So, it’s this…?”

Most of them looked away.

Thunderous Battle found himself not knowing whether he should laugh or cry.

“Boy, based on what you said, if we didn’t get your reminder, we would have still been stupidly working as laborers at the former Dragon Gate Inn. Are you an idiot or what?”

“That’s right. You’re just making yourself feel bad. We decided to follow the trend, so we can’t blame anyone for it.”

“Yeah. Even if you didn’t remind us of this, we would have discovered it sooner or later, and we’d still have gone after them. This time, only a few of us managed to escape…”

The group spoke one after another, and as the conversation continued, they sighed.

“That’s right. I saw a group of West Region elites being killed with just one slash with us. They didn’t even manage to dodge. Activating body fortifications was also useless.”

“Tsk… Why was Dongfang Bubai acting as if he had suddenly taken viagra? How did he become so strong?!”

“It’s useless for Dongfang Bubai to take viagra, though?”

Someone suddenly said this, and the group fell silent for half a second before they burst into laughter. Only Little North looked up and dumbly watched the group who were still able to laugh so happily even after they were killed once. He rubbed the back of his head in great puzzlement.

“Viagra?”

His dumb look caused Thunderous Battle and his group to burst out laughing again.

The group instantly turned into a sight at the entrance of the Guanlin Temple.

They chatted and laughed with each other for a moment. The group intended to meditate and return to the peak of their condition before they left the desert. With their current situations, even if they went into the desert, they would still die. No one dared to try snatching Tiger Soul again.

“By the way, I wonder if there are any other Lovely Land members in the desert.”

While they were resting, someone suddenly said this.

Thunderous Battle swiftly realized that this was a possibility, and he frowned before he took over the conversation. “That’s right. Large groups of people entered the desert every day since the system notification appeared. Some of our members might still be on their way to the desert…” When he said this, he paused for a moment, and his tone changed. “This won’t do! We have to remind them not to get close to Dongfang Bubai. That guy is too dangerous, and Tiger Soul isn’t something we can dream of taking.

“But how are we supposed to know who came?”

“We can send word to Tea Words. I heard that he is currently in charge of Lovely Land’s information network. If we tell him, we might be able to notify some of our members!” Someone beside Thunderous Battle received this reminder, and Thunderous Battle immediately went to work. He wrote a letter and sent a messenger pigeon to Tea Words.

Thunderous Battle’s messenger pigeon did not stay for long in Tea Word’s hands. Very soon, it was transferred to Happy, who was sipping tea in Flame Town.

Silver Wolf and his party had already left…

This desert town was desolate and inconspicuous. Only one elderly man and teenager sat at the city gate, and they looked extremely relaxed.

But as Happy held two letters in his hands, he frowned.

Even though the contents in it did not exceed his expectations, the information Tea Words sent to him still caused him to be slightly surprised.

The owner for Tiger Soul had changed, and it landed in Dongfang Bubai’s hands.

The entire army of Embroidered Uniform Guards died, and the one who killed them was Dongfang Bubai.

Even if tens of thousands of players went up against him, they could do nothing against Dongfang Bubai, most of them perished in the desert.

The other letter contained information sent to him by Wandering Know-it-all, and the information contained in it was even more terrifying than the news provided by Tea Words.

Tsao Suiyan died!

The people from Wind Assault Tower were attacked viciously by Wild Wolves. They had more than one thousand people with them, and they were easily defeated by dozens of Wild Wolf elites. All of them were massacred!

Tsao Suiyan was only of average strength among those in the dao of heaven. It was perfectly normal for him to die in the competition over Tiger Soul. But the second news caused Happy to be incredibly puzzled, and he also felt very ill at ease.

Wild Wolves had plenty of elites whose strengths were on par to Phantasmal Shadow and Wu Kuo, and this time, Phantasmal Shadow did not bring a lot of elites with her…

However, Wind Assault Tower had absolute advantage in terms of numbers this time. They should not have been so weak. After all, Evil Emperor was not with Wild Wolves to serve as their sentry this time.

Besides, Phantasmal Shadow was personally in the area.

Even if they were truly unable to fight against Wild Wolves, they should not have any problem in having a portion of them escape from being slaughtered!

Hence, it was no wonder why he had been shocked when he saw that Wind Assault Tower was completely taken out in Wandering Know-it-all’s letter. This by itself was something that was incredibly unbelievable.

If Happy did not have a thorough understanding of Phantasmal Shadow’s strength, he would truly begin to suspect that Phantasmal Shadow had her head muddled because of the heat in the desert.

He remained silent for a moment. Then, Happy sucked in a deep breath.

The people who led the team were Flame Wolf, Peach Blossom, Immortal, and a few other people he was familiar with. He knew their strengths very clearly. They might be strong, but they were not strong enough to take down Phantasmal Shadow.

But this time, even Phantasmal Shadow died in the encounter, and she died in the desert, where nothing could be hidden. Happy could not begin to imagine what had happened.

‘But…’

The gloom in his heart did not disappear even after a long time had passed.

Happy remained silent for half a minute before he sucked in a deep breath and cast a glance at the scorching sun in the sky. While Thousand-faced Human Fox watched him in silence and great concern, he muttered, “They should be coming by now…”

“…”

Thousand-faced Human Fox cast a glance at the sky in the direction where Happy looked. He then cast a glance at the desert outside the town. Aside from sand and the sun, he saw nothing.

As he was feeling puzzled…

Flap! Flap! Flap!

The sound of wings flapping could be heard.

Another white pigeon entered their sights. They flapped their wings and obediently landed on Happy’s outstretched arm.

Thousand-faced Human Fox found himself speechless.

Could his master have been talking about pigeons?

He was right.

At the moment he opened the letter, Happy knew that he had managed to get the news he wanted.

It was a letter from Phantasmal Shadow.

As the tower master of Wind Assault Tower, the fact that Phantasmal Shadow was able to overcome her pride and send a letter to him after suffering such a major loss in the desert showed just how serious the matter was.

If it were truly just a series of low-grade mistakes in commanding her troops, Phantasmal Shadow would definitely not send a letter over to offer any explanations.

Accidents and things he could not possibly imagine must have really happened.

With this thought in mind, Happy opened the letter and read the details in it quickly.

The letter was very long.

As he read it, Happy frowned even further.

The details listed in Phantasmal Shadow’s letter were too clear, and it gave Happy a feeling as if he was in the fight itself from the start to the end.

Three minutes!

Wild Wolves had used a grand total of three minutes to launch their ambush and end the fight.

In the letter, Phantasmal Shadow mentioned that Wild Wolves had initially only sent thirty people to ambush them.

The clear advantage in numbers and the wide and open environment as well as field of vision around them allowed Phantasmal Shadow to immediately make her judgment. She decided to engage them in combat.

Both parties were clearly aiming for Tiger Soul.

And since they were facing their enemies, they had another similar goal appear between them—both parties now wanted to kill each other.

There were more than one thousand Wind Assault Tower members, and she had more than ten top-class players with her. At that time, Phantasmal Shadow’s first thought was that this group of Wild Wolves had gone mad, because they had broken off from their group to give her a chance to break them down one by one.

But at the moment they truly engaged with them, twenty-seven Wild Wolves suddenly split into three groups.

There were nine people in each group, and each of them formed an incredibly strange formation.

It was a 1-2-3-2-1 formation, making them look like a diamond.

When the first person attacked, the eight people behind him would reach out to place their hands on the people in front of them.

They push down on them gently before they let go.

“A matrix?”

Phantasmal Shadow’s first thought was that they wanted to use a matrix to attack her, and she immediately became wary.

But Phantasmal Shadow still underestimated the threat brought by these twenty-seven people.

When a group of people charged into the midst of the Wind Assault Tower members, Phantasmal Shadow could only watch as an elder of her tower who was rather famous for his great defense have his chest crushed because of one single strike. He crashed into several of his tower members like a boneless sack of flesh and knocked them down. Then, he flew hundreds of feet away.

One died, and four were injured.

And that was just one palm strike.

‘The power of that palm strike can compare to my Full Winds in Long Skies. What matrix could be that powerful?’

When he read this, Happy could not help but frown.

This matrix formed by nine people was incredibly powerful. Even the Four Matchless Sword Formation he gave to Silver Wolf and his party was not that powerful.

‘Could it be a top-grade matrix?’

When he thought of this, Happy forced himself to be patient.

The power from that one palm strike from the Wild Wolves shocked all the people from Wind Assault Tower. It also reminded Phantasmal Shadow how terrifying this matrix was.

“Attack together!”

With that command, more than one thousand Wind Assault Tower members attacked at the same time.

However, this was just the beginning of the terror.

Even if they faced more than ten times their enemies, the Wild Wolves remained calm. While they retreated, they calmly killed the people they saw.

These twenty-seven people remained in the formation of three diamonds. They did not react as other groups would normally do when they were surrounded. They just retained their distance while they killed multiple people with just one slash. The body fortifications of those in Inaction Realm were not that much stronger than paper before the Wild Wolves. They managed to easily break through them.

But when the attacks from those from Wind Assault Tower landed on the ones attacking from Wild Wolves, that person remained completely uninjured.

In the blink of an eye, Wind Assault Tower lost more than one hundred people.

“Retreat!”

When Phantasmal Shadow faced this powerful and mysterious enemy, her first thought was to drag out the fight and get a clear idea just what was going on.

But once she gave the order to retreat, things progressed from bad to worse for them!

The people behind them had top-notch lightness skills. There was no way those from Wind Assault Tower would be able to run away so easily.

Wild Wolves chased after them using hidden weapons, and the speed in which the people from Wind Assault Tower died became even faster. In the blink of an eye, more than one hundred people died.

When Wind Assault Tower split up to run, another ten or so Wild Wolves suddenly jumped out from the sand ahead of them.

They descended into a chaotic fight, and everyone just went about slaughtering everybody else.

Wild Wolves just cut into whoever they saw.

The situation turned completely chaotic.

Since she did not know whether the remaining Wild Wolves would still plan out an ambush in front of her, Phantasmal Shadow had to change her train of thought while her tower members swiftly died and the ones remaining cried out in shock. She switched from retreating to ordering her members to fight to the death, and she tried to kill as many Wild Wolves as possible.

In the end, all Wind Assault Tower members died within a short period of time.

“A nine-man matrix…?”

Happy frowned and thought about it for a moment before he asked Thousand-faced Human Fox, who stood behind him quietly. “What sort of matrix is capable of being able to consistently deliver terrifying attacks and provide extremely high defenses with the condition being that every member needs to put their hands on each other? Ten Thousand Years, do you know about it?”