Sword Among Us

Vast Martial City [1] was a normal, middle-sized city, but it was quite famous because it was located close to the royal mausoleum, which was a favorable condition given to it by nature itself, and it found favor with martial artists. Many of the new sects that rose to power on a later date had their headquarters set in Vast Martial City, and they brought prosperity to it.

The news of Happy’s death first spread through Vast Martial City.

The players in Guanlin Temple should have been a very unlucky bunch of people, but they had managed to witness a very shocking sight of Happy walking out, and the gloominess in their hearts vanished. Instead, they found glory in the fact that they had died at that time, and when they met someone, they told them all about it.

According to them, when Happy left Guanlin Temple, quite a number of sects and great players in Vast Martial City thought about attacking him, and their target was his equipment.

Since Guanlin Temple, there had been plenty of people who had trailed behind Happy either in broad daylight or in the shadows. They followed him wherever he took a step.

At that time, Happy had not just gone to the market, but also to the commission shop. Then, he walked out of Vast Martial City in a rather listless fashion.

Hundreds of martial artists headed out of the city as well; all of them wanted to be the ones to obtain Happy’s equipment. They attacked him en masse, and that was how the bloody murder outside Vast Martial City had happened.

None of the people who attacked survived.

Even if Happy’s abilities were reduced, he relied on his three-feet long sword and his sturdy Golden Armor Set to remain standing even when faced with hundreds of people. He killed people with a single slash of his sword, and in less than ten minutes, he had taken care of nearly three hundred people.

Countless martial artists who had heard of the news and rushed over were so terrified that their souls almost left their bodies, and they dared not approach him. Once Happy turned around and chased dozens of them to death, the others did not even dare to remain in his line of sight.

An hour after that, Happy changed to silver armor and appeared for a brief moment a few miles away. Then, he completely vanished from the people’s sights.

*****

Now, the teams that were hunting Happy were already around sixty miles away from Vast Martial City, and the people in nearby cities also searched for him. They even set up checkpoints, but they could still not find him.

Some people in Vast Martial City guessed that Happy had stayed for a long time in the royal mausoleum and had logged off for a while. Then, he must have hidden himself within the search area.

*****

Due to Happy’s disappearance as well as the tense situation of Beautiful Robes Faction, some rumors gradually appeared in Vast Martial City.

Class One Hall had just built their branch in Vast Martial City, and once Happy died, most of the resources in the royal mausoleum would definitely land in their hands!

Originally, Class One Hall had the advantage of being an unshakeable force, but once Happy died, the resources in the royal mausoleum would become theirs, and they would definitely enter a period of time when they would be able to develop swiftly.

The people from Class One Hall’s branch in Vast Martial City strengthened their advantage nonstop to create great pressure on the local sects.

*****

On that day, a few of Class One Hall disciples worked together to visit a diviner’s stall.

“There’s still ten minutes.”

One person checked the time, and he could not hide a hint of excitement in his quivering voice.

His companions also looked excited and exhilarated. “Once Happy dies, we’ll see who else will dare to stand against Class One Hall in World of Martial Arts!”

Even though the Killer Star prevented them from finding Happy straight away, they had absolutely no problem in searching for him when it vanished. They grasped this fact and were prepared to locate Happy the moment he was no longer hidden. Then, they would send the news to Vice Hall Master Barren and the others at the same time. Even Hall Master Dream Clouds waiting for the news in Beijing.

However, while they waited quietly and counted down the time, black messenger pigeons suddenly flapped their wings among the crowd on the streets of Vast Martial City.

Flap, flap, flap!

The black messenger pigeons immediately attracted the attention of all the players on the street.

Countless gazes focused on their landing points like spotlights. They gathered on the Class One Hall disciples who had stunned expressions on their faces.

They were shocked speechless, and they looked at each other at a loss.

‘This was… the warning messenger pigeon when a sect’s foundation was attacked.’

“Who’s cracking a joke now?” One of them took down the messenger pigeon from his shoulder and mumbled to himself with a frown, “Who is it? Who would be so blind as to attack us?”

The group found themselves blushing in displeasure when the public witnessed Class One Hall being provoked.

They spread out the letter to take a look, and their eyebrows twitched.

“Damn it!”

“What blind and brainless crazy would do this!”

The letter did not show that the headquarters was attacked, but that the branch in Vast Martial City had been attacked. The system notified them that they had ten minutes to return and defend their home ground.

“Let’s go!”

“Let’s go and take a look!”

“Don’t. Vice Hall Master Barren’s orders are that we wait here and give him Happy’s location within the shortest time possible. It’s not as if there’s no one at the branch anyway.”

“That’s right, I’ll send a messenger pigeon to Old Yu and ask him. It might be some bored bastard who has decided to cause trouble for us.”

Class One Hall disciples felt that they were amazing people and could not see their own weaknesses.

But they could not be blamed for that.

After all, aside from having a comrade who fulfilled the standards of Class One Hall located in Vast Martial City’s branch, Barren Murderer himself personally served as a garrison. He also had thirty or so of Class One Hall’s core members by his side, all of whom were top-tier elites.

With that sort of setup, unless a sect decided to mobilize all of its forces to attack, it was impossible for them to touch Class One Hall’s branch foundation in Vast Martial City.

Once the messenger pigeon was released, they soon received a reply.

[We don’t know which bastard did it, but he cut off our flag, and he also impaled our signboard with a throwing knife. Once we rushed out, we could no longer find him. We don’t know which bastard’s prank is this. Damn it, don’t let me find him, for if I do, I’ll chase and kill him for three days and three nights!]

Old Yu cursed up a storm in his reply, which made it clear that he was very angry.

The Class One Hall members looked at each other and smiled on the street. They felt relieved.

Most of the members of Class One Hall acted in a very flashy manner usually so they offended quite a number of people. The attack earlier was perhaps some members of Vast Martial City’s local sects deciding to intentionally vent their anger.

The group did not pay any more attention to it, and as time passed, the ten minutes were soon up.

Slap!

A small pouch filled with gold was slammed on the diviner’s stall, and the Class One Hall members gave their order while looking down on the diviner.

“Help me search for Happy’s whereabouts!”

When they saw the diviner happily take the pouch, the group was filled with high spirits, but at the same time, they could not help but curse the developers for their shamelessness. How could they charge someone so much money just to get someone’s whereabouts?

Last time, they only needed to pay a few thousand taels of silver to search for Happy, but now, the damn price had increased by tenfold, and they had to pay a few thousand taels of gold!

Besides, searches usually lasted for some time, so they might need to spend tens of thousands taels of silver or even hundreds of thousands taels of silver. If they did it for an entire day, they would not even know just how much they had paid to the NPCs.

Fortunately, the diviner was rather professional and very effective.

He threw his oracle bones on the eight trigrams chart and calculated the results. Then, he handed a piece of paper to the Class One Hall member who had paid him.

The latter hastened to grab the letter and read it.

“Urk! This is…”

When he saw the words on the letter, he sucked in a sharp breath. He was stunned into silence.

The people on his sides saw his dumbfounded expression and were unable to hold themselves back. They snatched the piece of paper over…

The next moment, their faces drained of blood. They drew their weapons and dashed over the roofs toward their branch at the fastest speed possible.

‘Damn it!’

Happy’s coordinates showed that he was right at their branch’s entrance.

They had stomped on Happy’s tail with their actions!