This middle-aged man was the city lord. He was also Guo Xu’s father, Guo Zhengyang.

Seeing that his precious son had been injured, he was startled and infuriated. He roared at Long Chen and the others, just about to attack.

“City lord, junior master’s life rod has been severely damaged. It requires peak grade Life Giving Elixir and a top grade Flesh Birthing Pill to heal.” One of the elders quickly examined Guo Xu’s injuries.

Having one’s penis and balls completely destroyed was naturally a heavy injury. Guo Zhengyang only had this one son. Now, this was a big matter.

Guo Zhengyang frowned, and after a moment of hesitation, he said, “Have healers treat him. Medicine can also be poisonous, so healing naturally is better.”

The elder was speechless. He had followed this city lord for three hundred years. Although he was well aware of how stingy he was, he hadn’t thought he would be so stingy with his flesh and blood son.

This was the epitome of stinginess. Healers could definitely help him recover, but it would be painful and take a long time. Guo Zhengyang would rather his son suffer than heal him with medicine.

“Who did this?! Get out here!” As people carried away Guo Xu, Guo Zhengyang glared at Hua Shiyu and the others.

Hua Shiyu was just about to walk out when Long Chen beat her to it. He said, “You are city lord Guo Zhengyang? The Xuan Master has ordered me to give you some money.”

What shocked all the disciples was that the furious Guo Zhengyang immediately smiled brightly upon hearing that he would get money.

“Yes, as expected, the Xuan Master is a hero amongst men. Sigh, my Xuantian City has truly been low on funds recently. We don’t even have the money to repair our defenses. Where is the money?”

Long Chen smiled. He had an urge to prostrate himself in admiration toward the Xuan Master’s scheming ability. With both hands, he extended a spatial ring to Guo Zhengyang.

Just as Guo Zhengyang reached out toward it, Long Chen’s hand suddenly grabbed his wrist, and in front of everyone’s shocked gazes, he threw him to the ground.

BOOM! Dust flew everywhere. Guo Zhengyang had never imagined that Long Chen would dare to sneak attack him. He had no defenses at all and was easily knocked unconscious.

“Long Chen, what are you doing?” Now, even Gao Xianyang was shocked. Was he trying to rebel?

At this time, countless experts flew out of Xuantian City, looking at Long Chen holding the unconscious Guo Zhengyang with dumbfounded expressions. But not one person came to help.

“I was ordered by the Xuan Master to investigate Guo Zhengyang’s corrupt practices. He embezzled the wages for workers just to stuff his own pocket. Here is the tablet the Xuan Master personally bestowed upon me.”

Long Chen took out a golden tablet with a large Xuan character written on it. It gave off immense pressure, and when it was taken out, an illusory image of the Xuantian Dao Sect appeared. This was the Xuantian Dao Sect’s highest authority tablet. Seeing it was like seeing the Xuan Master.

“Starting today, I am the city lord. My orders are to seal the city. No one can leave. Those who disobey will be directly executed,” announced Long Chen.

Everyone just stared blankly. Even Meng Qi and Tang Wan-er hadn’t known that Long Chen had come with special orders.

“Senior apprentice-brother Su Mo, senior apprentice-sister Mu Qingxuan, Hua Shiyu, and Wang Zhen, bring people to block the four city exits. If anyone dares to forcibly leave, kill them,” ordered Long Chen.

Although the four of them didn’t know what Long Chen was thinking, they still led their people to seal the city.

Long Chen brought the remaining disciples into Xuantian City. Once they were inside, they truly became speechless.

There was not a single brick in Xuantian City that was still intact. They were all cracked and broken. This was the most broken-down city Long Chen had ever seen.

Once he was inside, he saw quite a few Foundation Forging experts dispiritedly soaking in the sun. They looked like they were just waiting for death.

Seeing Long Chen dragging an unconscious Guo Zhengyang, those people’s eyes brightened slightly. One of them even excitedly asked, “Senior, have you come to uphold justice and put this blood-sucking ghost on trial?”

Senior?

Looking at this middle-aged man with a full beard and mustache, Long Chen felt a wave of pain at being called a senior.

But he understood this person’s expression. This person had clearly been suppressed and squeezed too hard and for too long. He clearly wanted Guo Zhengyang dead.

“Does Guo Zhengyang have any accomplices?” asked Long Chen directly.

“Yes, yes! I’ll bring you to them right now!”

Quite a few people began to cry out with excitement, shocking Tang Wan-er and the others. They had no idea what was going on.

“Let’s go.”

Long Chen handed Guo Zhengyang to Gu Yang and followed these people to a luxurious mansion. As soon as they arrived, several experts blocked their way, cursing.

Long Chen directly sent those people flying and broke the door down with a punch. Only once all of them had charged in did the people inside react. However, they were easily beaten into submission by the Dragonblood Legion.

At the core of the mansion, a large fatty appeared. He was just about to speak when he was knocked unconscious with a fist.

Xuantian City had four great noble families. Now, as soon as Long Chen arrived, they were all captured.

The entire city was in disorder. Quite a few people tried fleeing, but they were stopped and captured.

Within the city lord’s mansion, Long Chen and all the others were gathered. Guo Zhengyang and Guo Xu were lying on the ground, along with dozens of people from the four noble families. They all lay there, motionless.

Under Long Chen’s orders, Meng Qi investigated their souls. What shocked everyone was that the city lord and even these noble families were people of the Heaven Suppressing Magic Sect, or people with close relations to the Heaven Suppressing Magic Sect.

Once Meng Qi explained what she had learned with her soulsearch, Long Chen truly had an urge to prostrate himself toward the Xuan Master.

This city lord was an existence the Heaven Suppressing Magic Sect had set up in Xuantian City. It was only with their help that he had gained enough support to become the city lord. As for the Xuan Master, he had simply acted like he didn’t know.

Guo Zhengyang was an absolute scrooge. He was miserly with others, and he was also miserly with himself. Just from the way he treated Guo Xu told everything.

Once he took office, he did his best to pull in as much wealth as possible. He was completely corrupt, even squeezing the disciples of their wages. He used all kinds of excuses, and as a result, none of the Xuantian Dao Sect’s disciples wished to stay here, and they went to report to the Xuan Master.

The Xuan Master had once sent someone to investigate, and as a result, Guo Zhengyang had shown a detailed list of his accounting work. An examination of this list revealed no mistakes at all. Then that investigator had left.

As a result, Guo Zhengyang became even more overboard. Those people who had falsely accused him had all been kicked out, and their wages had gone into his pocket.

Just three years after he took office, there were practically no longer any disciples from the Xuantian Dao Sect who stayed. There was no money to be made here, so they all returned to the sect, or they left to make their own way in the world.

Guo Zhengyang saw this, and he quickly enticed a few of his own relatives to come over. From his wives’ families, he managed to bring over many relatives. In just ten years, all of Xuantian City was composed of the Heaven Suppressing Magic Sect’s people.

This was because Guo Zhengyang was not content with his situation. With no more disciples coming, his profits were shrinking, and the Xuantian Dao Sect only sent money to fix the defenses every few decades. Therefore, he actually used his own relatives to take in more money.

These relatives were all outer members of the Heaven Suppressing Magic Sect, and so amongst them, his background was the greatest, so much so that they couldn’t resist. His aunt was one of Ma Xingkong’s dual cultivation partners.

Once he had duped four relatives here, he directly bestowed them the title of four grand noble families and said they would jointly develop this region.

This region was filled with countless sea demons and rich in minerals. Guo Zhengyang had pulled them in as investors. And so they naturally had to put in money to get money.

The four grand noble families ended up sinking all their wealth into this place. They had thought they would be able to start making all of it back in just a few decades.

But they quickly found that this was not the case. The accounting books were all overseen by Guo Zhengyang, and he constantly gave excuses that the Xuantian Dao Sect had debts and was taking resources. He didn’t dare to touch their investment yet. Only once they had enough accumulated wealth could they go through with the plan, so he told them to wait patiently.

Guo Zhengyang was truly a swindler. Not only did he not give them dividends, he even started charging them rent and all kinds of other taxes.

The four grand noble families were infuriated, but Guo Zhengyang didn’t care. He directly told them that if they wanted to stay behind, they had to listen. Otherwise, they could scram.

But once they left, they would lose the status of noble families, and they would lose their initial investment. So they couldn’t leave, but they also couldn’t do anything to Guo Zhengyang due to his background. They could only endure.

Guo Zhengyang continued with his tricks. He had them dupe more people over. He said that he would give them a third of the profits from those duped people. Furthermore, when they finally left Xuantian City, he would give them an extra fifteen percent of their earnings.

The four grand noble families could only start baiting their own relatives into coming in order to survive.

Now, all the people in Xuantian City were the Heaven Suppressing Magic Sect’s outer members. Even the experts on duty were their people. Most importantly, they had all been tricked over, and they didn’t get the slightest salary. Even when they killed sea demons, the profits would go to Xuantian City. With Guo Zhengyang’s severe threats, they didn’t even dare to run away. They could only continue like this until they died.

This was also why no one came to help once they saw Guo Zhengyang had been knocked unconscious. They only watched with stupefied expressions because they were already numb.

But when they learned Long Chen had come to replace Guo Zhengyang, they almost wept tears of joy. They wished Long Chen would directly kill this greedy bastard, because only once he was dead would they be freed.

Long Chen now had over three hundred spatial rings, and each one of them was filled with treasures.

There were weapons, sets of armor, medicinal pills, materials, spirit stones, etc. There was one in particular that made Long Chen’s heart pound wildly.