"I should live longer than you," Huo Lian said mildly.
"You two have some nerve, sneaking straight into my Fierce Mountain Gang," Wang Xiongshan said. "If you'd fled as soon as I discovered you, one of you might have escaped. But now..."
"Never mind whether we can escape," Huang Xiao said. "I never thought everyone would have misjudged your strength. All that talk of you barely entering the upper ancient realm was utter nonsense."
"Was it?" Wang Xiongshan chuckled at Huang Xiao's words. "Everyone knows I entered the upper ancient realm years ago. After all this time, isn't it perfectly normal for my cultivation to have advanced?"
"Going from the Upper Ancient Realm Initial Stage to the Upper Ancient Realm Late Stage, or even the peak, in just a few decades is anything but normal," Huo Lian said gravely.
Wang Xiongshan's expression changed slightly at Huo Lian's words.
Wang Xiongshan's voice grew somewhat dark. "It seems I still underestimated you. I didn't expect you to be able to detect my true strength."
"We don't really know your true strength. We can only make a rough deduction," Huo Lian said.
"If you really are at the upper ancient realm peak, that's truly astonishing," Huang Xiao said. "Back then, Kui Yong was only at the upper ancient realm peak, yet he was already a Demon General. Why would someone with the strength of a Demon General hole up here as the Chief of a mere Fierce Mountain Gang? What are you plotting?"
"Plotting? What could I possibly be plotting?" Wang Xiongshan said. "As for your claim that I have the strength of a Demon General, how many years out of date is that? Who knows how astonishingly powerful the senior Demon Generals who fought in that great war have become by now?