Free Web NovelChapter 541: Chapter 323: Departing One After Another, Heading to Ghost Mountain City
Wei Fan had made a name for himself after just one battle—at least here in Linyao City, there was hardly anyone who didn’t know him.
As he walked down the street, people—whether they knew him or not—greeted him, nodding from a distance.
Of course, there were also hateful stares directed at him.
The streets of Linyao City weren’t just filled with humans; there were also demon fiends who’d come to trade. Compared with the friendly human martial artists, many demon fiends looked at him with open hatred.
But no demon fiend dared to make a move here. The Holy Sect governing Linyao City was extremely powerful; for countless years, almost no one had dared to start a fight here.
"If you’re not satisfied, come up on the stage and challenge me!"
Wei Fan had no intention of indulging these demon fiends. He immediately issued a provocation, but none of them dared to respond.
The items traded here were all kinds of things—he even saw some demon fiends trading away the bones of the dead, and human powerhouses selling demon king corpses at their stalls.
Besides those, most of what was traded included all sorts of spirit medicine and divine ore for forging weapons. Wei Fan also made a purchase, getting some divine jade to set up arrays.
Five days later, Feng Hua exited seclusion, smoothly breaking through to the Eighth Level of Martial King. She was even more dazzling and radiant.
"Let’s head back to Celestial Star City!" Gu Ziqin said.
Linyao City was right next to demon territory. Logically, if they wanted to hunt demon fiends, they could set out from here. Returning to Celestial Star City would just mean spending extra spirit crystals on the transmission domain gate.
But this time, Wei Fan and Feng Hua had attracted too much attention. They were definitely already being watched by powerful demon kings. To go hunt demon fiends now would be suicide—they had to head back to Celestial Star City, lie low for a while, change their looks, and then come back to hunt demon fiends.
Wei Fan wanted to kill demon fiends, but he also knew it wasn’t smart to enter demon territory right now. Even if he wasn’t afraid, he had to think about Zhi Hua and the others.
After bidding farewell to their new acquaintances like Yan Zhanhong, the group left Linyao City, heading for the nearest place with a transmission domain gate. free𝑤ebnovel.com
"Be careful out there!"
As soon as they left Linyao City, the group became alert, worried that demon fiends might ambush Wei Fan and Feng Hua. But nothing like that happened.
Three days later, the whole group had disguised themselves and shown up in Celestial Star City.
Now it wasn’t only Wei Fan and Feng Hua who needed to keep a low profile—even Gu Ziqin and the others had to, and couldn’t show their real faces. They weren’t worried about the human race; it was demon fiends they didn’t want to attract.
Five-Colored Demon Bull, Dragon-Horned Deer, Winged Serpent—all powerful-bloodline demon fiend races. After so many years of human-demon war, there had to be demon spies among humans.
They went to the Demon Hunter Sub-Hall to claim the merit points for this mission. Gu Ziqin and the group got a share, but the largest chunk went to Wei Fan, followed by Feng Hua for killing the Winged Serpent.
"Didn’t expect we’d end up riding on your coattails. Feng Hua really did find us a backer." Zhi Hua sighed.
The merit points awarded by the Demon Hunter Organization depended on how urgent the mission was.
For example, normally, killing a Demon King Third Layer would only earn three thousand merit points, but because the Little Bull King had rampaged through Linyao City, slaughtering over a dozen human geniuses, the reward for killing Little Bull King was multiplied tenfold—the Demon Hunter Organization had offered thirty thousand merit points.
That much merit was worth as much as killing three Demon King Ninth Layer demon fiends.
In fact, if Wei Fan hadn’t gone to kill Little Bull King, after some time the merit would have kept rising, hoping to attract geniuses from outside Beiding Continent to come finish the job.
Besides the merit points from the Demon Hunter Organization, there were also bounties placed by the factions whose disciples had been killed by Little Bull King.
While those bounties weren’t merit points, for many people, the spirit crystals were even more useful.
Spirit crystals were loaded with the purest heaven and earth essence qi, usable for activating arrays or for cultivation—they were basically the most accepted currency in the Jianghu.
Even though they didn’t get that much, this time they really did get a free ride with Wei Fan—without lifting a finger, they’d pocketed both merit and spirit crystals. After subtracting domain gate travel costs, they’d still netted a few thousand spirit crystals.
"Still missing some merit!"
Wei Fan wanted to exchange for a Martial Saint Level step technique. Right now, his speed was a bit slow.
Back in Linyao City, he was already slower than Dragon-Horned Deer, but even with all the points they’d earned, it wasn’t enough to exchange for the Martial Saint Level movement technique he had his eye on.
For now, he and Feng Hua were laying low in Celestial Star City, waiting for the fuss in Linyao City to die down, and keeping their tracks hidden.
Now it wasn’t just demon fiends who wanted him dead; even Zilan Sect probably couldn’t sit still anymore.
After disguising themselves a few more times, he, Feng Hua, and the others moved into a small inn. Meanwhile, they started planning their next target.
The Demon Hunter Organization had plenty of missions, but many of them had been around for like a hundred years without anyone completing them. Those had to be filtered out, and any that were too much for their team’s ability were also off-limits.
But it was really just Gu Ziqin and crew doing the filtering—Wei Fan just listened on the side. freewebnσvel.cøm
"Sorry, I might have to leave the team for a while!"
Just a day later, Gu Ziqin found the group. "My family arranged for me to enter the Wilderness. I have to head out there."
To be honest, everyone with connections in Beiding Continent was already scrambling to get into the Wilderness before Dao Collapse ended, to get the native identity of the original sentient beings there. That was also the main reason the Three-headed Demon King had stormed Linyao City.
It wasn’t that there weren’t any geniuses in Beiding Continent—it’s just that they’d already been arranged to enter the Wilderness.
"That’s good news, go for it!"
Feng Hua and the others didn’t say much—being able to enter the Wilderness before Dao Collapse ended would save you at least decades down the line.
In that time, you might even have a shot at becoming a saint.
In the Five Great Domains, Martial Kings might have one or two thousand years of lifespan, but that didn’t mean they could always break into the Martial Saint Realm. Word was, once you passed five hundred years, you could live a few thousand years longer but you’d never become a saint.
That was because once a Martial King passed five hundred, they were no longer at their peak—their qi blood would start declining, life force slowly running out. Becoming a saint was practically impossible unless you found some ten thousand year spirit medicine to replenish your qi blood.
Two days later, Wei Zhenyang and Ling Hu Yingjie also left—Zhi Hua was the only one left, since her family didn’t have the pull to get her into the Wilderness.
"Those bastards!"
Feng Hua was fuming—she’d gone from feeling happy for Gu Ziqin to now being pissed off.
She’d thought that before Wei Fan grew strong, having Gu Ziqin and the others to protect him, help with missions to rack up merit, and score some bounty spirit crystals for cultivation would be a good thing. Who’d have thought, after pocketing Wei Fan’s benefits, they’d just leave him behind?
After all the back and forth, it was pretty much just her and Wei Fan left.
There was still Zhi Hua, but of the four, she was the weakest in combat—just Martial King Seventh Layer.
Wei Fan was speechless about the whole thing—he hadn’t really wanted to take advantage of Gu Ziqin and the others. It was just that, with them around, it was easier to pick missions and get to know the Five Great Domains.
Still, at least he had Zhi Hua left—she knew quite a bit about the Five Great Domains. And as for Feng Hua, she’d been stuck in the Wilderness for years—her information about the outside world was already old.
These days, Wei Fan would chat with Zhi Hua when he had nothing to do, starting with Beiding Continent and then expanding to the rest of the Five Great Domains. Even though there was a lot Zhi Hua didn’t know, she still knew way more than he did.
Three days later, after multiple rounds of disguise, the three of them left Celestial Star City, heading to a place called Ghost Mountain City.
This was the mission the three of them had picked out.
There was no shortage of bounties from the Demon Hunter Organization, but any mission with an increased merit reward was always tough—unless it was one of those that just desperately needed handling, in which case the organization would up the bounty to attract people.
With their current strength, even dealing with a Demon King Ninth Layer would be a struggle. Wei Fan did have a Holy Soldier, but that was a trump card—not something to be used lightly.
Also, use a Holy Soldier too much and it’ll drain your life force, your qi blood, hurt your origin.
Across the Five Great Domains, Wei Fan didn’t really know how things stood between the human race and the demon fiends. Feng Hua and Zhi Hua weren’t so sure either. But after a few days of asking around, he realized Beiding Continent was actually in worse shape than the Wilderness—maybe a lot worse.
Sure, there were big cities like Celestial Star City, but in most of the human world, the common people still suffered demon fiend attacks.
The Demon Hunter Organization in Beiding Continent couldn’t guarantee the safety of every human. Critical missions popped up all the time.
The Ghost Mountain City mission was one of those urgent ones.
Seven days ago, an entire village near Ghost Mountain City disappeared overnight—over a thousand people, all missing without a trace.
Three days ago, another village had the same thing happen—a few hundred people vanished. The whole thing was causing panic in the area.
Despite all this, the City Lord of Ghost Mountain City hadn’t sought help from any nearby powerful sects, nor from the Demon Hunter Organization. It was actually the organization’s intelligence agents who found out and passed it up the chain.
The task for Wei Fan and his group was to head to Ghost Mountain City, investigate what took those people from two villages, and find out why the City Lord was covering it up. If possible, they should also eliminate whatever was causing the harm.
"No wonder no one picked up this mission!"
Outside Celestial Star City, Feng Hua looked at a route map and just sighed.
Even with a transmission domain gate, it’d still take seven or eight days to reach Ghost Mountain City—a long, winding journey.
Beiding Continent was just too massive—nobody even knew how many cities there were. Most of the time, when you took a mission, you had no clue how far you’d need to go.
Zhi Hua stuck out her tongue. "It’s all Wei Zhenyang’s fault—damn guy. It was always easiest with him around. He knew Beiding Continent inside out."
She and Feng Hua had decided to take this mission, but now they realized it was a total pit. The travel time alone was brutal.
"No big deal, let’s get moving!"
Wei Fan didn’t mind. Seven or eight days sounded long, but at least he’d gotten away from Linyao City’s limelight for now, and he wasn’t planning on heading back to Celestial Star City anytime soon.
Celestial Star City was prosperous and good for cultivation, but it just didn’t suit him.
You didn’t have to go back to Celestial Star City to take on missions. You could pick some straight from your Demon Hunter waist token—and he wasn’t really doing this for the tasks anyway; it was about killing demon fiends for power harvesting.
