Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

The scene was like a whole bucket of red paint being poured on a messy picture.

Jin Yuyan’s head was entirely gone. His blood sprang from his neck to almost four floors high and sprayed everybody around.

The headless body cramped for a while and fell to the ground.

The scorching and chaotic air was immediately frozen. Everybody was dumbfounded for three seconds, finding it hard to believe that Jin Yuyan, the business tyrant at the edge of the Imperium and the director of the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors, had died just like that.

Li Yao’s eyes almost popped out into flails that were swung to Jin Yuyan’s dead body. “… Seriously? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Brother Yao—”

Li Jialing’s voice came from somewhere far away, mixed in indescribable shock. “Jin Yuyan seemed to have suffered—well, a headshot, didn’t he?”

“It’s impossible! It’s unreasonable! These are just illusions! They can’t fool me!”

Scratching his face, Li Yao was almost jumping. “Jin Yuyan can’t have been killed just like that. I’ve locked onto every inch of space around him. Bullets, mystic rays, or highly-compressed venom—nothing could’ve possibly escaped my attention! I guarantee with my honor! No, I guarantee with my own head that absolutely, absolutely, absolutely nothing hit Jin Yuyan’s head a moment ago!

“However powerful the bullet from the sniper was, and no matter what techniques it had been endowed with, it was impossible to blow up Jin Yuyan’s head when it was knocked so far away by me! It was impossible!

“I can say, with confidence and without exaggeration, that even if Blackstar the Great were here a moment ago, he couldn’t have killed Jin Yuyan secretly while escaping my eyes!”

Li Yao’s head was humming for a moment. His every brain cell was like an overloaded crystal processor. The heat that they emitted even twisted the air around.

In the chaotic market, Li Yao was the first one to calm down.

Something was greatly wrong with Jin Yuyan’s death. The game wasn’t over yet. Or rather, it had only just begun!

Shua! Shua! Shua!

Li Yao’s telepathic thoughts went to the sniper’s spot between two high towers where the bullet came from like invisible electric arcs.

He clearly sensed that the sniper of the Divinity Transformation Stage accelerated to the highest speed the moment the bullet was shot out in order to retreat to the edge of the market, not even having time to check the result.

An excellent sniper always considered it more important to preserve themselves than to eliminate the target. The assassin who was supposedly “Red Lady” was clearly not an idiot who would wait on the spot to be captured.

Perhaps she was confident that the shot must’ve killed Jin Yuyan.

By the time Li Yao’s telepathic thoughts covered her, she had already dashed out for a thousand meters like a viper that had grown wings, about to disappear from everybody’s search range under the cover of the skyscrapers and the complicated tubes.

Right then, from the two streets at the edge of the Commodity Market, another two equally powerful strength surged out and chased after the assassin who was possibly “Red Lady”.

Judging from their instantaneous outburst of spiritual energy and their agility in the narrow space, they were likely to be battle-type Immortal Cultivators in the Divinity Transformation Stage, too!

Three gods of death have shown up!

Li Yao thought quickly. Assuming that the intelligence is right that the security of the Seven Seas Grand Market and Jin Yuyan is in the hands of the “four gods of death” in the past, and Red Lady, one of the “gods of death”, betrayed and ambushed Jin Yuyan a moment ago, the other two “gods of death” must’ve realized the betrayal and gone after Red Lady.

Then, here comes the crucial problem—where is the last “god of death”? What does he want?

However chaotic the situation was, one could always find clear traces as long as the most crucial problem was grasped.

The key right now was that the three super assassins, who were possibly three “gods of death”, had left the place, some running and some chasing, while the last super assassin of the Divinity Transformation Stage hadn’t revealed his identity and was probably lurking next to the dead body of “Jin Yuyan”. In that case…

Li Yao took a deep breath and scanned around the dead body of “Jin Yuyan”; his eyes as cold as ice.

He suddenly discovered two very strange things, or rather, two very strange people.

First, it was a tall, strong, wild-looking female bodyguard.

The female bodyguard had been with Jin Yuyan on the luxury limo in the first place. After Jin Yuyan got off, she had been following her master closely too, implying that she must’ve been one of Jin Yuyan’s most trusted bodyguards.

However, the woman who looked like a chimpanzee was hardly qualified to be a bodyguard.

First of all, she was rather weak compared to other bodyguards. Judging from the spiritual waves and the vitality field, her spiritual energy was abundant, but she was obviously short of long-term, high-intensity combat training. The output of her spiritual energy was continuous but lacked explosive strength that could be unleashed in one moment. It was not suitable for fighting but more apt for the management or creative jobs that counted on brain cells.

Perhaps she had practiced some sort of secret technique that altered and disguised her real form with spiritual energy. Even Li Yao was deceived by her in the beginning. But now that everybody was on high alert, she subconsciously exposed her habitual way of releasing the spiritual energy. Naturally, Li Yao saw through it immediately as an expert above the Divinity Transformation Stage.

Secondly, bodyguarding was a very special profession that needed to regard the employer’s life to be more important than their own. As Jin Yuyan’s personal bodyguards, even if they might not be strong enough, their loyalty was certainly unquestionable.

After Jin Yuyan was blown up, all the other bodyguards had moved forward. Even though they knew that it was hopeless, they were still protecting Jin Yuyan’s body.

The female bodyguard, on the other hand, had been backing off nonstop and looking around, as if she were waiting for someone to save her.

Unless Jin Yuyan had been blind, why would he have chosen such a weak and cowardly woman as his personal bodyguard?

The second person that attracted Li Yao’s attention, in the meantime, was a bald guy not far away who was wearing a white leather coat and colorful Cosmos Rings on his fingers, which made him look like a wealthy, arrogant tycoon.

When everything was in peace just now, the person had talked with Jin Yuyan. He should be one of Jin Yuyan’s old friends and an influential magnate in the peripheral worlds of the Imperium.

At this moment, all the other merchants were escaping, fearing that they were coincidentally killed by the assassin who murdered Jin Yuyan.

The bald tycoon was the only exception. He seemed to be escaping, but he was actually approaching the female bodyguard who looked like a chimpanzee under the cover of the crowd in a curve.

The fleeing and chasing gods of death were already beyond Li Yao’s perception. They must’ve been more than ten kilometers away.

The bodyguards were either around Jin Yuyan’s headless body or hunting the assassins of the four families who had been exposed. They had no time to bother with the chimpanzee-like female bodyguard at all.

The female bodyguard discovered the intention of the bald tycoon, but she did not back off at all. Instead, as if she were grasping a lifebuoy, she voluntarily went to the bald tycoon.

Li Yao, however, sensed that the muscles on the legs of the bald tycoon were tightened, and his pores were constricting. It was the sign of an animal that was about to attack.

Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!

Countless sparks burst out in Li Yao’s eyes at the same time. All the clues were connected, leading to an astonishing conclusion.

Before he was completely back to himself, Neltharion, under the control of the mental devil, had broken free from the stealth state, turning into a streak of bloody brilliance that went at the back of the bald tycoon’s head.

Right when Neltharion rushed forward, the bald tycoon was only ten meters away from the female guard. He had extended his hand at the female guard with a comforting smile, as if he were assuring the female guard that everything was under control.

However, in the next second, the thin, unstoppable brilliance among his fingers already dashed at the neck and the heart of the female bodyguard, like dozens of invisible daggers that could chop everything!

If everything had gone naturally, the dozens of daggers would’ve cut the female bodyguard’s throat, carotid artery, and cervical vertebra more than easily, before mincing her internal organs into pieces.

They could’ve also pierced into her eyes and churned her brains into a pot of tofu.

However, the mental devil’s attack was far beyond the bald tycoon’s expectation. He was forced to bend his back and dodge it, which resulted in half a second’s delay in his attack.

Taking advantage of the half-second delay, Li Yao filled his cape with spiritual energy and threw it at the bald tycoon, having no time to keep his disguise anymore, and jumped at the panicked female bodyguard himself.

Cling! Cling! Cling! Cling! Cling! Cling! Cling!

The same shiny and thin daggers blinked out of Li Yao’s fingers and crashed into the bald tycoon’s daggers quickly. The speed of both parties was too high for them to be caught by the naked eye. It could only be seen that the cape Li Yao threw out was torn into thousands of shreds in only one moment before it was set on fire by the splashing sparks!

“Gotcha!”

Li Yao stood before the female bodyguard and put on a cruel smile. The brief battle of one second had informed him that the bald tycoon was also an expert in the Divinity Transformation Stage.

Li Yao did not think that the magnates from the peripheral worlds of the Imperium could’ve been so strong. He must be either the Black Flag King, Red Lady, Hanged Man, or Revenant Of The Dead Sea.

Red Lady had escaped, and the Hanged Man was a ghost. So, the guy was either Black Flag King or Revenant Of The Dead Sea.

As one of the best Divinity Transformation Stage assassins at the edge of the Imperium, why was he interested in a female bodyguard when “Jin Yuyan” had been killed, to the point that he had to kill the unimportant female bodyguard through such brutal methods?

There could only be one answer. The guy whose head was blown up a moment ago was not Jin Yuyan but just a stand-in. The “female guard” who seemed unrefined, hideous, and like a chimpanzee was the real Jin Yuyan!