NOVPUB
Chapter 98: Close Combat Against A King Stage
He looked at the vendor owner for a moment, stunned.
"Low King stage!"
He couldn’t detect the owner’s cultivation. For someone at his level, the owner must be using an artifact or some extraordinary technique to hide his cultivation, as he seemed able to avoid detection even from the elders and grand elders of the Thorny Flower Garden, and even from Sect Master Ryu Hyuk-Jae. Xin Haotian was still in his room—it was impossible for someone at the King stage to evade his detection and get this close.
The vendor owner couldn’t have hidden his presence, aura, and cultivation through ordinary means alone, not with so many powerful beings nearby.
After considering for a moment, he decided to handle this situation himself, leaving Baek Ji-Min to report to the Thorny Flower Garden. He created his domain, ensuring it would be safe for him and those around him.
"Miss Ji-Min, please listen. The drink has been poisoned, and I need you to notify a nearby elder, at least one with a Middle King stage cultivation, to come here." Aldrian sent a voice transmission to Baek Ji-Min.
She widened her eyes slightly before glancing at the owner.
"Why don’t we just wait for the elders to arrive? It’ll be safer for them to handle him," Baek Ji-Min suggested.
"If he sees the elders approaching, I’m sure he’ll escape, even if it means sacrificing a few people. His real target is me, and he’ll grow suspicious if i don’t drink. With his King stage cultivation, things could get ugly fast if he’s determined to kill me. There will be many casualties," Aldrian explained.
Baek Ji-Min hesitated. 𝖓𝔬𝔳𝖕𝖚𝖇.𝖈𝔬𝔪
"Please trust me. I can handle him on my own."
She bit her lip but eventually nodded.
"Okay, I’ll inform the elders. Please be careful." She stood up and, without any suspicious movements, walked away.
The owner glanced at her briefly before turning his attention back to Aldrian. He watched as Aldrian stared at the drink for a moment before downing it in one go. The owner smiled faintly but quickly returned to a neutral expression as Aldrian approached him, smiling.
"Your drink is delicious. What’s it called?" Aldrian asked.
"Thank you, young master. It’s a traditional drink from the northern continent, usually served during celebrations among commoners. Although it’s made from a mix of low-level spiritual herbs, it has a refreshing and pleasant taste," the owner replied.
"Celebration for your death," he thought to himself.
"Good, good. Here are the energy stones." Aldrian took out a low-grade energy stone and handed it to the vendor. As he gave it to him, he clasped the owner’s hand in a gesture of thanks, one that didn’t raise any suspicion. The owner watched as Aldrian returned to the inn, then hurriedly closed his stall.
"Mission complete. He’ll be dead in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1."
Suddenly, the scenery around him shifted. Now, he found himself inside a room. Stunned, what shocked him even more was the young man standing before him. Without a word or any warning, Aldrian struck, landing a punch aimed directly at the center of the vendor’s chest, targeting his middle dantian.
The owner, still reeling from the sudden change in surroundings and Aldrian’s swift action, almost lost his footing. But he was still a King stage cultivator. With a nimble move, he barely dodged the punch by a hair’s breadth and retaliated with a fist aimed at Aldrian’s face. Aldrian blocked the blow with his other hand.
The owner was shocked to find his fist caught in Aldrian’s grip, unable to pull free. It felt as though his hand was trapped in the jaws of a beast. Desperate, he unleashed his powerful aura and energy, trying to suppress Aldrian, but suddenly, his energy flow became chaotic. He couldn’t circulate it smoothly.
He finally detected a foreign energy already blocking some of his meridians. He saw Aldrian’s fist strike coming for his middle dantian again. With one hand still trapped, there was no way to dodge. Left with no other option, he tried to meet the strike with his fist.
The moment their hands connected, the sound of cracking bones echoed through the room.
He grimaced in pain, overwhelmed by the sheer strength of Aldrian’s body. The golden energy coursing through Aldrian not only made him powerful but also enhanced his physical form, surpassing even that of a typical body cultivator.
"Don’t underestimate me!" the owner roared, pushing himself to break free from the blocked meridians with his powerful King stage cultivation. Strands of lightning began crackling across his body, trying to destroy everything around him. Yet, strangely, the small room remained undamaged, with the space merely wobbling as the lightning touched the walls.
"A barrier! And a strong one at that," he realized.
Aldrian swiftly distanced himself from the owner as the lightning raged in all directions.
"Dealing with a King stage inside such a confined space is troublesome," he muttered.
He had attempted to turn the energy inside the owner’s body into a paralyzing poison, but the man’s King stage cultivation was too strong to be fully subdued by just that. Even Aldrian’s energy suppression wasn’t enough, their cultivation gap was too wide to make a significant difference. Aldrian quickly gathered his golden energy into his fist and teleported right behind the owner. With all his strength, he delivered a powerful punch to the man’s back.
Caught off guard by Aldrian’s sudden teleportation, the owner tried to block the incoming strike, but it was too late. The punch landed squarely in the middle of his back, right at his middle dantian. Blood spurted from his mouth as his body was flung against the wall with a loud thud.
He collapsed to the floor, and to his horror, he felt his energy leaking uncontrollably from his body.
"My dantian is shattered!" he thought, terror-stricken. But before he could process his defeat, Aldrian was already beside him, lifting him up effortlessly.
The man could no longer resist. With his cultivation shattered, he was as powerless as a weak mortal.
"How—" the owner tried to speak, but Aldrian ignored him and pressed a hand to his forehead. He wanted to see what kind of information he could extract. After all, sending someone at the King stage meant this man must hold some standing within the group, right? He couldn’t afford to let him commit suicide, so he restrained his body with his energy.
As Aldrian delved into the owner’s memories, he encountered a seal, a standard procedure used by organizations to protect their secrets when a member is captured. The seal was complex, but Aldrian managed to break it within a minute. Wasting no time, he sifted through the man’s memories, searching for the most important information. Finally, he found a piece of information.
After a moment, he released the owner’s forehead. The man had already fainted, the combined of extreme pain of his shattered dantian and the mental invasion are too much to bear. Aldrian stood, pondering what he had just learned.
"The man who ordered this assassination doesn’t just want to kill me—he’s also targeting Eleine, Sylphia, and Xin Haotian," He sighed in relief. This confirmed that the group of assassins, and the mastermind behind them, didn’t know his true identity. It seemed the mastermind had sent these assassins purely because of the recent events at the Dual Peak Horns. He started putting the pieces together.
"The events at the Dual Peak Horns... If this is connected to the Golden Swan Commerce, then why did they only start targeting us after that incident?" Aldrian slapped his forehead.
"Of course. They don’t want their connection to the devils exposed. The only ones who know about the devils’ involvement in the Dual Peak Horns are the city lord’s manor, the devils themselves, the Yu family, and us. They must have figured out an unknown group helped the Yu family."Aldrian felt concern for the Yu family.
"They’ll likely try to eliminate the Yu family now that the city lord’s manor is gone. They’re trying to erase any trace that points back to their connection with the devils."
He could only hope that the support of the three great sects would be enough to slow their movement until he could find a solution.
"The Fingers, huh, what is that? I’d better ask Xin Haotian about that later."
He glanced at the door before Aldrian dispelled the formation and canceled the barrier.
Creak.
Aldrian looked toward the door as it opened. Xin Haotian scanned the room briefly before his gaze settled on the unconscious man lying on the floor.
"It’s really surprising. You managed to subdue him in such a small space. As expected from the young master I admire," Xin Haotian remarked.
Aldrian ignored the compliment. He hadn’t had much choice. There wasn’t a suitable place within this two-kilometer domain to fight a King stage cultivator without causing significant damage or drawing attention. To trap an assassin of this caliber, he chose the confined room to limit any chance of escape. Before teleporting the owner into the room, he had informed Xin Haotian of the assassin’s King stage cultivation and asked him to be on standby in case something happened outside.
"But to evade my senses like that... He must have used some extraordinary method," Xin Haotian said.
"Do you know about ’the Fingers’?" Aldrian asked.
