Martial Peak

A thousand kilometers away from War City, on the second floor of a city restaurant, the guests were plentiful and business was booming. More than a dozen tables were filled with cultivators drinking wine and dining on food.

At one of the tables near the window, a middle-aged man with thin-eyes and a skinny build sat with an indifferent expression.

In front of him were many large and small jugs as well as several dozen pitchers of wine, but even as this middle-aged people downed so many drinks, his face wasn’t the slightest bit red.

He just sat there in his seat, staring out at the pedestrians on the street below with his cold eyes.

Every time he saw a cultivator with a little bit of strength, a malicious light would flash across his eyes, almost like a hungry beast that had come across fresh meat and was just waiting to pounce.

On his face, his expression would change from struggling, hesitation, and reluctance for a while before it gradually subsided with a long sigh, followed by him grabbing one of the jugs of alcohol in front of him and draining it bitterly.

“This old master is starving.” The middle-aged man muttered bitterly as his beady eyes swept over the guests on the second floor, his throat undulating in a rather pronounced fashion as the expression on his face constantly showed signs of struggle, cursing his foul luck in his heart.

“If this was still the Ash-Grey Cloud Evil Land I could just do whatever I wanted.” The middle-aged man sighed again.

The store’s waiter brought over new pitchers of wine and swept away the empties before hurriedly retreating. Whenever he was near this middle-aged person who was nothing but bone and skin, the waiter couldn’t help feeling like his life was in imminent danger, almost as if this middle-aged man would suddenly transform into a devil and swallow him whole.

As the middle-aged man was wallowing in his unhappiness, an interesting conversation was happening next to him.

It was about the artifact snatching battle which had taken place a few days ago, the few people who were chatting spoke as if they had seen it with their own eyes as they described vivid scenes from the great battle.

“Don’t you know yet? The Central Capital’s First Young Lord isn’t the Liu Family’s Liu Qing Yao anymore.”

“You mean someone beat Liu Qing Yao?” Everyone was shocked.

“It wasn’t a defeat, but the youngest Young Lord of the Yang Family who only was a True Element Boundary Eighth Stage cultivation took two moves head on against Liu Qing Yao who is a Immortal Ascension Boundary Third Stage master. With such a big gap in strength, the two of them still fought on equal footing!”

“Just wait until that Little Lord grows to the same height as Liu Qing Yao, he’ll surely defeat him. “

“Did that really happen?”

“Naturally! This news is absolutely true, I saw it with my own eyes! The Little Lord is amazing. So young yet possessing such unfathomable strength, on top of that, he’s made allies of more than a dozen first-class forces. I have no doubt that in this Inheritance War he’ll be the ultimate victor.”

“Are you sure? Wasn’t it said that the youngest Young Lord had no connections at all?”

“Don’t you understand what it means to play the pig to eat a tiger? First lure your enemies with weakness, and then shock them with your true strength. At that point, who could possibly resist against him?”

“If I remember correctly, the youngest Young Lord was called Yang Kai, right?”

“Right right, Young Lord Kai...”

As soon as he heard the name Yang Kai, the middle-aged man who was drinking froze, turning his head to look at the man who was just speaking, seemingly very interested in what he was saying all of a sudden.

The people at the next table over made no attempt to lower their voices so everyone on the second floor was easily able to hear what they were saying, causing one of these listeners to snort contemptuously, “What do you know? Clearly that brat Yang Kai only managed to survive two moves because Young Lord Liu wasn’t using his full strength. I was also there and saw everything; didn’t you hear what Young Lord Liu said at the end?”

With a chuckle, the man paused for dramatic effect before boldly declaring, “Young Lord Liu said, ‘Yang Kai, you’re not my opponent. When you grow up, let’s fight once more!’ That was what the First Young Lord of the Central Capital should act like. Yang Kai only blocked two of his casual moves, what’s so great about that?”

The cultivator that spoke earlier was a bit dissatisfied and argued back, “That was just Liu Qing Yao acting arrogantly, if they exchanged a third move, he definitely wouldn’t have been the winner. Yang Kai is the Central Capital’s new First Young Lord!”

“BULLSHIT!”

The quarrel between the two soon spread throughout the restraint. All the cultivators in the Great Han Dynasty were now paying close attention to the Inheritance War; each of them naturally had their own ideas about the trends and developments that occurred.

A moment later, the cultivators on the second floor were divided into two camps and were noisily arguing.

Only the middle-aged man who sat by the window remained silent as the argument raged, but the light that flickered in his eyes was gradually becoming more and more dangerous as time passed.

The crowd quarreled for quite a while but obviously nothing was resolved.

The cultivator who started this whole debate was now thoroughly worked up and turned to the silent middle-aged man and asked, “Hey you, who do you think is the Central Capital’s First Young Lord?”

“You’re asking this old master?” The middle-aged man grinned and asked.

“Yes, you should say something too. Even if you’ve been silent the whole time, you obviously have your own opinion. Let all of us hear it! But... you know... at your age, claiming to be an old master, hahahaha!”

Everyone else also laughed a bit, wondering why this middle-aged person was pretending to be some wise old man.

The second floor suddenly calmed down as everyone’s eyes fixed on the middle-aged man, waiting for him to add his opinion.

The middle-aged man nodded lightly and drained the cup in his hand before firmly declaring, “If you really want this old master to say, the Central Capital’s First Young Lord can be no one else but Young Lord Yang Kai! Not only is he the Central Capital’s First Young Lord, but in the future, he will also be this world’s First Powerhouse, jie jie jie jie!”

Everyone was stunned, even the group of people who were impressed with Yang Kai’s recent display felt that this middle-aged man was exaggerating a bit too much and shook their heads .

Saying Yang Kai was the first person in the Central Capital’s younger generation wasn’t beyond debate, but to say he would be this world’s First Powerhouse was going too far.

There was no end to the martial path, even until now, none of the top masters at the Above Immortal Ascension Boundary had ever claimed to be invincible.

“This crazy old man...” The cultivator who first supported Liu Qing Yao said disdainful. “What kind of nonsense is he spewing, what shit does Yang Kai count for? Actually saying he’ll be the world’s first in the future...”

But before he had finished his sentence, he suddenly froze, almost as if his throat was caught by an invisible force rendering him unable to speak.

Everyone turned to look at him and couldn’t help paling.

They saw the face of this cultivator become dark in the blink of an eye, as if he had been poisoned, and his eyes became red as blood began flowing out of his seven orifices.

The next moment, a visible energy flew out from the top of this person’s head and erratically circled the room as the middle-aged man’s eyes gleamed.

The middle-aged man then opened his mouth and directly swallowed this energy form into his belly.

Surprisingly, the middle-aged man who was nothing more than skin and bones, after swallowing this energy, suddenly inflated slightly. Although he was still thin, it was not as wretched as before.

With a loud thump, the dark faced cultivator fell to the floor, dead.

A chill gripped everyone’s heart, making all the cultivators on the second floor feel like they had been plunged into an icehouse.

No one knew how this man died, but from the scene just now, everyone was clear that the culprit was this horrifying middle-aged man.

Terror, fear, panic, and utter mayhem suddenly broke out and quickly shrouded the entire restaurant.

The middle-aged man lowered his head and a wicked, grating laughter slowly leaked from his throat. When this laughter reached the surrounding cultivators, their Blood Force roiled, as if the blood in their veins was boiling.

“Jie jie jie jie...”

The maniacal laughter rapidly grew louder and more insane.

“This old master is starving, and since you’ve offered yourselves up, this old master won’t be polite! Afterwards, if Young Master pursues this matter, this old master also has an excuse!” The middle-aged man muttered as he remained in his chair.

*Pa pa pa...*

A grand bouquet of red flowers suddenly blossomed on the second floor as the bodies of various cultivators burst into blood fogs. Five viscera, six organs scattered all over the floor and the walls were painted bright red. The same energy blob that emerged from the first victim emerged from each dead body and was swiftly swallowed by the middle-aged.

The thin body of the middle-aged man inflated once again, gradually becoming somewhat sturdy and handsome, the only thing that remained unchanged was his cold and piercing eyes.

In a flash, the second floor of the restaurant had become a scene straight out of hell and more than twenty cultivators had died!

The surviving members shivered in fear but none of them could muster enough courage to run away; much less rebel. All of them staring at the middle-aged man in pure terror.

“Still not enough!” The middle-aged man patted his belly, his face showing a clear look of not being full as he glanced around at the dozens of people who were still alive.

When his eyes swept over the crowd, everyone immediately knelt down on the ground and vigorously kowtowed, begging for mercy.

The middle-aged man hesitated for a while, and then for some unknown reason, he didn’t finish them off, his body dissolving into a black mist and disappearing from everyone’s sight.

After he left, the cultivators who survived looked at each other with astonished expression, none of them understanding why this man had let them go.

Judging from the cruel and merciless methods he had just demonstrated, he obviously wouldn’t bat an eye at killing a few dozen more people, but he didn’t do so.

As the survivors began examining each other, all of them were surprised to find that the people who had been spared seemed to be the ones who had just supported Yang Kai, while those who opposed Yang Kai were all dead.

Being able to escape this tribulation, all of them thanked the Heavens for their luck.

After coming to grips with the fact that they were still alive, everyone began noticing the blood and guts which they were all but bathed in and couldn’t help throwing up the food they had just ate.

These cultivators weren’t inexperienced people who had never seen bloodshed before, but none of them had ever witnessed such a horrible scene!

Everyone who had died had basically become scattered chunks of meat...

Outside the restaurant, a black mist suddenly appeared and the middle-aged man’s form gradually condensed. Staring in the direction of War City a thousand kilometers away, he grinned and whispered under his breath, “After such a long time, I wonder if Young Master will be surprised by this old master’s new look!”

Saying so, his expression suddenly sank as he muttered, “I hope Young Master won’t blame me for being late. If I’d only known, I wouldn’t have stopped over in the Ash-Grey Cloud Evil Land for so long...”