Recruitment and Change, a Fight to the Death (Part One)

Solitary Cloud Stronghold was a bandit outfit in Mystic Mountain, with nearly a thousand men under its command. Its forty-six leaders called themselves the "Lone Cloud Forty-Six Friends." The foremost among them possessed sorcery, and local officials had mounted several campaigns against them, only to be slaughtered and driven back in defeat.

It could be said that every campaign sent their arrogance and power another rung higher.

Behind Solitary Cloud Stronghold stood Ci Prefecture's local magnates. Their ties to the bandits ran deep, which was another reason the stronghold was so difficult to suppress.

That was what Ci Prefecture's Imperial Demon Hunters had on record about Solitary Cloud Stronghold.

Some things lay outside their records. Every year, for instance, Solitary Cloud Stronghold offered a hefty bribe to persuade the Cizhou Branch Censorate to look the other way. Naturally, a fair share also found its way to the Imperial Demon Hunters' Judicial Inspectorate Office in Ci Prefecture.

And the reason Solitary Cloud Stronghold had endured so long was its trade: abducting people and selling them in the Eastern Sea.

That trade linked Ci Prefecture's magnates, certain officials throughout the prefecture, and the merchant guilds of the Eastern Sea in a single hidden chain.

No needle could pierce it; no water could seep through.

If not for the upheaval in Ci Prefecture, their business could have gone on for years. But today, that business had reached its end.

Su Che had arrived.

"Liu Yidao" held a saber in his left hand and fought his way from the foot of the mountain to its summit. All who stood in his path fell before him. Those who had dared stand before Ghost Slayer now lay scattered along both sides of the trail.

He casually picked up a long saber from the ground and flicked