Sha Pingwei's Despair

Gao Yunyi sat casually on the Crane King's back, his eyes showing none of the tension or anger that might have come before revenge.

This was revenge for Xiao Ya, but to him, it was nothing more than a mission.

The only difference was that this mission was blue, so alongside the calm in his eyes, there was also a trace of anticipation.

With two skill points added to it, Blazing Sun Sword Qi had grown much more powerful.

Unlike in the game, this beginner skill, as useless as a chicken rib, had actually displayed such fierce might in reality.

It made Gao Yunyi all the more eager to see what terrifying, heaven-shattering and earth-destroying spectacles the later skills would bring.

He had put the Nine Heavens Flowing Cloud Immortal Robe back on, though certainly not to show off in front of others.

Such pretentious behavior was beneath him.

The Canglang Gang's Main Headquarters was in Dingzhou City, which had tens of thousands of residents. If he were not an immortal and simply charged in to slaughter the gang, he would certainly draw the city's soldiers to its aid.

Gao Yunyi was not afraid of the soldiers, but he did not want to slaughter innocents.

The best way, therefore, was to descend upon Dingzhou City openly as an immortal, making a grand display of his arrival.

That way, even if he sent heads rolling and rivers of blood flowing through the Canglang Gang, the soldiers in Dingzhou City would not dare make a rash move.

When people killed people, it was a crime.

But when an immortal killed people, that was carrying out justice on heaven's behalf.

If, even then, anyone blind enough dared to interfere, it would mean they were certainly in league with the Canglang Gang, birds of a feather flocking together.

Then they would not be innocent, but accomplices, and Gao Yunyi could turn them into experience packs without the slightest burden on his conscience.

Dingzhou City was vast.

Finding the Canglang Gang's Main Headquarters in a city so large was no easy task.

Fortunately, the game's quest-tracking feature had been retained.

When Gao Yunyi rode the Crane King into the sky above Dingzhou City, the full map of the city unlocked.

The Canglang Gang's location was marked clearly on it.

To Gao Yunyi's even greater delight, the minimap was packed with red dots, as though every member of the Canglang Gang had gathered in one place.

He did not know why, but it saved him some trouble.

After locking onto his mission target, Gao Yunyi sent a blast of Blazing Sun Sword Qi down without hesitation.

At the Canglang Gang's Main Headquarters,

Sha Pingwei grew increasingly uneasy, always feeling as though some great terror was hanging over him.

He could neither describe nor explain it, yet it felt almost tangible, and it was tormenting him to the brink of madness.

He had already summoned back all the core members in the city, every one of them capable and shrewd, with considerable martial skill.

The Main Headquarters was guarded on all sides so tightly that not even the wind could pass through, making it impregnable.

Yet even so, Sha Pingwei felt no sense of security whatsoever. Instead, his unease and panic grew stronger.

That vast, invisible sense of impending danger, impossible to describe or explain, surged toward him like a raging tide, giving him the illusion that he was about to suffocate.

Sha Pingwei's palms were slick with cold sweat, his heart pounded like a drum, and the hairs on his back stood on end.

Though he sat steadily in his tiger-skin chair, his expression betraying nothing unusual, only he knew how anxious, panicked, and helpless he felt.

It was as if he were sitting on pins and needles, each day dragging on like a year.

"G-gang leader..."

Amid the oppressive, heavy atmosphere, a Canglang Gang disciple suddenly came running in from outside.

"Has the enemy attacked? Who is it, the Crocodile Gang or the Iron Palm Sect?"

Sha Pingwei sprang up from his tiger-skin chair, his tiger-like eyes fixed on the disciple at the door as he demanded an answer.

Startled by the gang leader's reaction, the disciple nevertheless hurried to answer excitedly, "No, it's an immortal! An immortal has come!"

Sha Pingwei: "..."

I've been on tenterhooks here, fully prepared for a powerful enemy to attack.

And now you fucking come running in here talking about some immortal?

Where in this world would an immortal come from?

It's all those charlatans playing at gods and ghosts, fooling the common people.

"Get out..."

Sha Pingwei bellowed, unable to contain his rage.

"B-but..."

The disciple wanted to explain, but his gang leader gave him no further chance.

He snatched up a teacup from the table and hurled it hard at the disciple's head.

"Get out."

Sha Pingwei was like an enraged tiger, giving off a terrifyingly violent and ferocious presence.

The unlucky disciple could only clutch his injured head and slink away, blood covering his head and his face deathly pale.

Sha Pingwei's anger had clearly not subsided; his face was so dark it could have dripped water.

He was not usually like this, but today his reason was like a taut bowstring, and the slightest rustle of wind or stir of grass could set him on edge.

In particular, a wild crane seemed to be calling incessantly in the sky outside, making him restless and sending his temper flaring.

"Damn it, shut up!"

Scowling, Sha Pingwei descended the steps, snatched the powerful bow hanging on the wall, and stormed out of the main hall.

Dingzhou City was close to Yangcheng Dian, so flocks of cranes often flew over the city.

Normally, he thought nothing of it, but today, for some reason, the crane's cries were especially loud.

The Canglang Gang had a branch at Yangcheng Dian, and in his spare time, Sha Pingwei would also go boating and hunt cranes there.

He had lost count of how many wild cranes had died beneath this powerful bow, and today he would use it to shoot down the silly crane squawking nonstop above his head.

As soon as he stepped outside,

Sha Pingwei found his underlings, who should have been keeping watch and patrolling, standing in a daze and staring up at the sky, without a trace of the vigilance or caution they should have had.

Sha Pingwei grew even angrier.

He was just about to berate them when a piercing crane cry cut him off.

"That'll teach you to squawk."

Sha Pingwei nocked an arrow and drew his bow, his face twisted into a fierce grimace as he aimed at the sky in a pose brimming with domineering swagger.

Then,

He saw a sight that made his heart tremble.

It was not the enormous, magnificent immortal crane, nor the graceful, otherworldly immortal, but a vast blaze of crimson fire.

Right before his eyes, it came crashing down like a meteor wreathed in raging flames.

Rumble—

The entire Canglang Gang Main Headquarters shook violently, as though an earth dragon were turning over beneath it.

The tremendous shock wave sent Sha Pingwei flying, leaving his ears ringing and his mind in a whirl.

When he recovered his senses, he found that everything before him had been reduced to ruins.

Courtyard walls and buildings had collapsed, flowers, grass, and trees lay strewn about, and the gang's members and disciples had suffered heavy casualties.

Sha Pingwei could scarcely believe his eyes. Was this still his heavily guarded, impregnable Main Headquarters?

The danger had not come from all sides after all, but had descended from the sky.

When Sha Pingwei looked up again,

He saw an immense, extraordinary immortal crane slowly descending with an ethereal, otherworldly immortal figure on its back.

So the rumors were not false.

There really was an immortal.

But why had an immortal come after him,

And personally destroyed everything he had built?