"Wow, is he dead?"

The man looked at Xu Xiaoshou. His eyes filled with anger and great amusement.

​​

This fella was a tough cookie.

He was aware that could never do things the hard way when it came to people with such stubborn tempers.

The man reached toward Xu Xiaoshou's eyelids and silently closed his eyes for him.

He had to do things in the hardest way possible.

"Well, since you promised, I also can't do nothing as you pass."

The scruffy-looking man sighed in resignation.

Death used to be a wonderful occurrence. Death had come easy in the past. Any small incident would have caused death. To be able to die was a form of release.

It was a shame that he could not die yet. Xu Xiaoshou was not at a stage where he could afford the luxury of death.

It was safe to say that his destiny had not even started yet.

The scruffy-looking man found his line of sight focused on the ancient text on the floor. With a wave of the hand, the palm-thick ancient text was turned into a stream of light that went straight into Xu Xiaoshou's mind.

Suddenly, the corpse on the floor started to shiver.

His expressions were cramped as his body shook uncontrollably. He was close to foaming from his mouth. He moved as if he was struck by lightning.

For a corpse to have such a violent reaction to pain, it was frightening to imagine the impact this ray of light must have had on his mind.

"You should rest..."

After much hesitation, the man did not let him swallow the elixir he held in his hand.

To experience pain while sleeping was much more tolerable than withstanding the pain while awake.

He turned his palm over and restored the elixir. Pushing his hand, he passed through a wave of Sword Aura.

The Sword Aura entered the energy center with a slight shake before it had perfectly synced into the body of Xu Xiaoshou.

The shell of Xu Xiaoshou's heavily wounded flesh body begun to sprout streams of sword cognition.

The sword cognition had exhausted the massive Sword Will and turned into a white fog.

The Sword Aura pulled together the flesh body and simultaneously triggered Xu Xiaoshou's torn-apart body. It constantly tugged and assembled it.

Within moments, the majority of Xu Xiaoshou's body had been healed.

A strong tide of life force surged from an unknown source and washed all over the body.

Cells were reproducing, nourishing, and growing the body as the flesh body began to rapidly recover.

The sudden change left the scruffy-looking man stunned.

'What's happening?'

'This surge of life force… Where did it come from?'

'Could it be that someone gave this fella a protective prohibition to prevent him from dying accidentally?'

'Isn't all that old fella knows how to do is blow his temper and run away from home?'

The scruffy-looking man was deep in thought. In this case, he could have saved the next Rejuvenation Pill.

If he gave this fella and his brimming life force the time, it would be possible for him to recover to the state he was at his peak.

'For an Innate Origin Court Level fella like him to have this kind of life force, what would he become when he becomes a Sovereign?'

The uncle laughed bitterly.

For others, to live again was an occurrence worth celebrating.

For him, to remain alive despite the desire to die must have been the greatest pain in the world.

'Such a burden of life force to carry at such a young age...'

'Why am I worried? I should be celebrating on your behalf.'

The scruffy-looking man sighed faintly. He watched as Xu Xiaoshou's convulsing body finally stood up.

He retrieved a sack from his ring and placed the twitching corpse inside. Fastening the knot, he casually tossed the sack aside.

Dong!

The ground shattered upon impact.

The man was stunned.

At this moment, a faint banging sound could be heard from afar.

The space barrier had been broken. A shocking number of black City Guards marched into the location and surrounded the area tightly.

Their leader by four Sovereigns.

"Charge!"

The guards maintained formation and charged forward with an overwhelming presence.

The audience of hundreds and thousands of rescued masses had retreated miles away.

Even in the aftermath, some of them were not petrified. Instead, they looked forward to the battle.

If it was not for the City Guards forming an obstruction line in the front, the hot-headed impatient individuals would have charged into the center of the battlefield.

"Look! What are those? Why are there are so many pits?"

"Pits? You must be blind. That is obviously a cliff!"

"I know this place. This was the shortest path to the Pill Pagoda. Tiansang City barely has any crowd, so how can there be any cliffs?"

"That's true, but there's no way a cliff a few miles in depth could be the result of a fight!"

"Oh, god, there might be a possibility it was from a fight. Could this be the power of Master Spiritual Cultivators?"

"Spiritual Cultivators..."

The masses watched the Master Spiritual Cultivators use their handcrafted tools from miles away.

Many Spiritual Cultivators lowered their heads silently.

The masses had been too kind to them.

No Spiritual Cultivators, including a Master Spiritual Cultivator, would be able to leave such a cliff in the defensive barriers of Tiansang City.

It would have taken a year to accomplish a feat such as this.

The quarreling crowd could only watch from afar, but those with the knowledge were aware that the battle was far from over.

Many wished to get closer to the center, but many knew that if they tried, there would be no escape. They would not have even know what killed them.

Xin Gugu squeezed by the crowd. He wore a frown on his face. His Golden Staff was particularly eye-catching.

However, in a situation as chaotic as it was, there was little attention paid to him.

The battle between Sovereigns was the heated topic of discussion of the moment.

"Am I late?"

In the past 10 minutes, he had rushed to the scene at the speed of lightning. He traveled so much that he almost figured out how to teleport between spaces.

All that rush had been in vain.

For someone of his caliber, he could easily tell the scene apart.

Xu Xiaoshou was alive and lying behind the scruffy-looking man. His body was well-hidden within the sack.

"Is this a kidnapping?"

Xin Gugu had never been this confused in his life.

Kidnapping aside, to bomb Tiansang City to this state was a little overboard.

Did they assume the City Guards to be a Buddha-level organization, one that would forgive in the face of the most atrocious crimes? What a joke.

Moving his sight to the ground, he spotted puddles of blood. The inside of one of the deep pits was scattered with colorful and differently shaped pieces of...

Was it pieces of flesh?

'Was this a homicide?'

He was more confused than ever.

If Xu Xiaoshou was alive, then who did the corpse belong to?

He had lost track of any sense.

In this context, Xu Xiaoshou was a mere outsider in the battle.

After all, someone who was at a trivial Innate level was not able to engage in a battle with a Sovereign that resulted in this terrible aftermath.

Therefore...

Xin Gugu turned toward the scruffy-looking man who stood in front of the sack. Was it his doing?

'But... How is it possible for someone his age to hit the peak?'

Xin Gugu felt as if his mind was about to blow. It was impossible to guess the truth of what had truly happened.

The weak and trivial status of Xu Xiaoshou couldn't have a battle of this scale with a Sovereign. Yet, the only standing figure of the fight was him.

How could he make sense of this?

'Don't panic!'

"If the damned hag was here, she would certainly instruct me to wait and see what happens next. So, I better wait and see how things go!'

'In the worst-case scenario...'

Xin Gugu poked the Golden Staff in his hand. His fingers tapped the body of the staff, which produced a steady rhythm. He started to count.

'One, two…'

The City Guards had sent four Sovereigns.

There was one scruffy-looking man.

No, he changed the number of Sovereigns from four to five.

His pupils were glowing with a dangerous glimmer.

'In the worst-case scenario, I could hastily and silently eliminate these five and take Xu Xiaoshou away!'

'Greedy the Cat Spirit must not die!'