"Thank goodness for the great Mercer. We'd have been dead without you."
Liu Hao walked straight up to Mercer, wiped his right hand, and held it out as he spoke.
"I'm Liu Hao. Nice to meet you, sir. You're even younger than I imagined."
"Nice to meet you, too." Mercer smiled and shook his hand.
After briefly greeting the others, Mercer turned to Sun Wukong with a smile.
"Great Sage, this is our first time meeting."
"You know me?" Sun Wukong asked in surprise.
Mercer chuckled and nodded. "Who in Great Xia hasn't heard of you, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven? You're a hero to so many children."
Just a few words of praise were enough to leave Sun Wukong a little embarrassed.
He had come spoiling for a fight, only for everything to end before he could even throw a punch.
Looking at Mercer up close, Sun Wukong found none of the obvious traits he had expected.
Overbearing arrogance, for instance. After all, someone who could create a system like that could easily have turned out that way, and Sun Wukong wouldn't have been surprised.
He had already prepared himself not to get along with Mercer, much as he hadn't gotten along with Leina, the captain of Xiong Bing Lian, at first.
Yet now that they had met, there was nothing confrontational about Mercer's words. Instead, he had an indescribably approachable air. Was it because he was handsome?
"Sorry for giving you all a fright. I only wanted to see how strong our Great Xia soldiers had become, so I had someone test you."
Mercer gave them an apologetic smile. He could tell that unleashing those four enormous Sky Blades had taken quite a toll on them.
"Not at all. We've wanted to try the Bright Light Formation-Breaking