Chapter Eighty-Nine: The Third Commander

When he saw Luo Long’s figure, he wheeled at once and fled toward the distance. The change was so abrupt it was enough to dazzle the eye. Only a moment ago he had been all swagger and menace, paying no heed even to the warning of the Nangong family’s expert, yet now that the newcomer from the Nangong family was the man in the green robe before them, a single casual strike had changed Luo Long’s expression in an instant. Like a cat had appeared before him, he ran faster than a mouse.

The man in green robe, seeing Luo Long’s fleeing back, let a faint, disdainful sneer appear at the corner of his mouth. He gave a cold snort and thrust out his hand. His five fingers slowly clenched in the void, and above Luo Long’s head, endless spiritual power gathered. Under the astonished gazes of the crowd, a square seal tens of feet wide abruptly manifested, from which surged a terrifying wave of spiritual power.

At the peak of the Spirit Realm, the man in green robe had long since reached a state of near-perfect harmony with the world’s spiritual power. Within his body it flowed without end, inexhaustible and continuous. With a mere lift of the hand, he could shape spiritual force and crush his enemies from a hundred paces away. Such feats were long since no challenge to him.

“Damn it, I can’t escape!”

Feeling the pressure descending from above, Luo Long looked up and saw the square seal that completely eclipsed his vision. His face changed at once. Without the slightest hesitation, he flipped his right hand, and a jade charm appeared in his palm. He crushed it at once, and his speed surged to a truly terrifying level.

In the span of half a breath, he had broken free from the seal’s shroud.

Luo Long’s heart bled. That speed-boosting charm had cost him a great fortune to procure from the Treasure Pavilion, and it was the only one he possessed. It had originally been reserved as a life-saving trump card. He was a profoundly cautious man, always carrying silver needles for ambush and assassination, while the speed charm was the emergency measure meant to save his life when facing opponents too difficult to handle.

And yet now, merely to deal with a blood-qi realm genius of the Ye family, he had been forced to reveal every last one of his killing methods, even his lifesaving card. What made him want to spit blood most of all was that the Ye family genius he had spent so much on trying to kill was still alive. That was something he found utterly intolerable.

This would be a terrifying enemy in the future, but he had no other choice now but to leave this place of trouble as quickly as possible, or even he might lose his life here.

“A speed charm?” The green-robed man also saw Luo Long’s sudden burst of speed and could not help but exclaim in surprise. Then he controlled the square seal and chased after Luo Long’s silhouette.

Luo Long himself was already at the consummate stage of the Spirit Realm. In terms of speed, even Black Sabre Li Yang might not have been able to catch him, and now with the speed charm’s enhancement, he had leapt yet another level. In a single instant, his figure shot several li into the distance, leaving the square seal far behind.

Watching Luo Long vanish into the distance like a streak of lightning, the green-robed man frowned deeply and then could only stop the pursuit helplessly. Even with his peak Spirit Realm cultivation, it would be very difficult to catch a man moving at such speed.

“So he got away!”

Ye Cheng stared intently at the dark speck Luo Long had become as it vanished at the edge of the sky. This time, he did not feel any regret that the green-robed man had failed to kill him. On the contrary, a firm resolve took root in his heart: this Luo family must be uprooted, Luo Long included.

After Ye Cheng withdrew his gaze, he turned his attention to the green-robed man who had stood with his back to them all this time. Only then did he see that, realizing he could no longer kill the fleeing man, the green-robed man finally turned around. His features were plain enough, but beneath arched brows his eyes were strikingly bright. When his gaze fell on Ye Cheng, a trace of killing intent made Ye Cheng’s heart turn cold. That murderous aura was far beyond anything Ye Cheng had encountered during these two months of training in the Demon Forest. Such a thing could not be formed without years of blood-soaked slaughter.

Clearly, this man had passed through countless killings, and even he himself seemed stained by that crimson air.

Fortunately, the man merely glanced at Ye Cheng without lingering, then shifted his gaze away and settled it on Nangong Xue beside him.

Feeling that astonishing murderous intent, cold sweat also broke out on Ye Cheng. Thankfully this man bore him no hostility; otherwise, if he had been deliberately fixed under that gaze for even a few minutes, Ye Cheng might well have collapsed mentally from the force of that killing aura.

“I apologize, Miss Xue.” The green-robed man clasped his hands and bowed to Nangong Xue. “I should have been able to kill the one who offended you, but I did not expect him to have a charm that could increase his speed. This subordinate was incompetent and allowed him to escape.”

Ye Cheng had seen it all clearly. A person at the peak of the Spirit Realm was enough to roam unchallenged through Luo Yang Town. Even the strongest person in the Ye family now, Old Master Ye, was only at that level.

As the young miss of the Nangong family and the cherished daughter of the city lord, Nangong Xue held an exceptionally lofty position, one sufficient to make even a peak Spirit Realm expert treat her with such deference.

“Yes, I saw,” Nangong Xue said, without blaming the green-robed man for Luo Long’s escape. Yet her beautiful eyes did not move away from him. With a dissatisfied expression, she said, “Commander Wang, if I remember correctly, before I left I ordered you all to guard Yongle City properly and suppress the unrest caused by the other factions. Why are you not still there fulfilling your duty? What are you doing here?”

“Please hear my explanation, Miss Xue,” the green-robed man said hurriedly. He then glanced at Ye Cheng beside Nangong Xue, as if he wished to say something, but in the end held his tongue.

Old Wu, who had been standing behind them all along, saw the green-robed man’s vigilance toward Ye Cheng and immediately gave a chuckle. “This is a younger disciple of the Ye family from the southwest frontier, little brother Ye Cheng.”

Then, smiling at Ye Cheng, Old Wu said, “Little brother Ye, let me introduce you. As the ruler of Yongle City, my Nangong family has eight stewards and nine commanders beneath us. The eight stewards form the decision-making body of my Nangong family, made up of some of the more influential experts in Yongle City, while the nine commanders are martial practitioners of my Nangong family, responsible for maintaining order in Yongle City.”

“So this is the third commander,” Ye Cheng thought to himself in sudden wonder. Earlier he had heard Nangong Xue address the green-robed man as Commander Wang, so it was clear he was one of the nine commanders, though Ye Cheng did not know his exact ranking among them.

It had to be known that within some great factions, the higher a commander’s rank, the stronger his power.

“This one is Wang Yang, the third commander of my Yongle City,” Old Wu introduced.

“The third commander!” Ye Cheng was greatly shocked in his heart.