Great Li Martial God

And yet even as the crowd jolted back to their senses, confusion still filled every face.

What had the storytelling elder in front of them just said?

The Great Li Eighth Prince, who had been living among common people, had single-handedly cut down every top-tier martial artist in one of the four great martial world sects?

He had even fought alone against four of Falling God Peak’s most powerful figures, including the grandmaster himself?

This was genuinely too outrageous to believe. The kind of story you could only ever expect to hear from a storyteller’s mouth.

But...

The storytelling elder before them did not look as though he were telling a story. It seemed as though he was describing something that had actually happened.

For a moment the entire tavern went silent.

But this time it was not the storytelling elder’s martial pressure holding them still. This time they had simply been rendered speechless by his words.

”Where did you get this information?”The young swordsman was the first to come back to himself, and his whole demeanor had visibly shifted. His voice dropped low as he pressed the storytelling elder below with a direct question.

At the same time, the rest of the tavern also began to stir, all of them looking down at the black-robed elder on the wooden stage, a man who clearly possessed considerable martial ability and was no ordinary storyteller.

Every one of them, just like the young swordsman, genuinely could not tell whether what he had just said was true or false.

At that point, the storytelling elder on the wooden stage faced the young swordsman’s question and shook his head, ”This old one understands that no one here will be able to believe what I have said right away.”

With that, the storytelling elder gave a casual wave of one hand, and a token engraved with unusual markings shot outward, suspended in midair above the open courtyard by the power of his true qi.

At the sight, eyes throughout the room turned toward it, and someone immediately recognized where it had come from and cried out in shock, ”The Heavenly Mechanism Pavilion!”

”Someone from the Heavenly Mechanism Pavilion?”

...

At those words, the others in the tavern also looked startled.

The Heavenly Mechanism Pavilion held a uniquely distinctive position in the entire martial world. Not only was it a top-tier martial force to rival Falling God Peak in its own right, what was even more important was that its network extended across all five nations of the world.

It was also the foremost authority on intelligence gathering, said to know all matters throughout the martial world and beyond. Compared to the intelligence organizations of the five nations, even those comparable to Great Li’s Hidden Intelligence Bureau, the Heavenly Mechanism Pavilion was in a class above them all.

Most crucially, the Heavenly Mechanism Pavilion had a supremely detached elder known as the Heavenly Mechanism Elder, who was said to possess the ability to perceive heaven and earth, and to calculate all matters from ancient times to the present. Even those counted as Martial Saints or Martial Gods in the martial world had received his guidance at some point, and held him in deep respect.

At that moment, the young swordsman’s eyes locked hard onto the token floating in midair, and he muttered almost involuntarily under his breath, ”If this is intelligence from the Heavenly Mechanism Pavilion, then it is probably true...”

As he said this, he tightened his grip on the sword at his side, his expression becoming visibly troubled.

At the same time, having learned that the storytelling elder was from the Heavenly Mechanism Pavilion, the tavern crowd, no matter how difficult to believe the man’s words still seemed, now believed them at least partway.

”So Falling God Peak has actually been destroyed? This must be the most significant event in the martial world in several decades.”

Someone spoke quietly in the tavern.

After all, they were on Falling God Peak’s own territory, and until the fall of Falling God Peak was truly confirmed, caution was still called for.

This alone showed just how deeply established Falling God Peak’s power and prestige in the martial world had been.

...

”If the Heavenly Mechanism Pavilion sent it out, the news should not be false. The Great Li Tianjin Guards destroyed Falling God Peak in a single night? When did the Great Li court become so formidable?”

”Looking at the Heavenly Mechanism Pavilion’s report, it seems more accurate to say the Eighth Prince is formidable rather than the court. One man wiping out every top-tier expert at Falling God Peak is simply beyond imagination. How terrifying must his martial cultivation be!”

”By all accounts, the Great Li Eighth Prince is not very old, is he?”

”He should be under twenty. Barely twenty, and he destroyed Falling God Peak... this...”

...

From the moment the storytelling elder had revealed his identity, the tavern buzzed with low voices from every corner, a constant hum filling the air.

At that moment every person in the tavern had their attention entirely on what the storytelling elder had revealed, and almost no one was paying any attention to the man himself.

In fact, quite a number of people immediately hurried out of the tavern, apparently wanting to pass the news to their own backing forces, or to go and verify whether it was true.

The storytelling elder took it all in without any inclination to stop them, because this news was going to spread across the entire martial world very soon regardless.

At that point, the young swordsman stood quietly in place for a long while, then suddenly looked down toward the storytelling elder, who now had barely anyone watching him, and asked, ”Why are you here spreading this news?”

At those words, the storytelling elder looked at the young swordsman and shook his head, ”The Heavenly Mechanism Pavilion is the largest intelligence network in the martial world. If we do not pass on the first-hand news of the martial world, then young hero, what do you think our reputation is built on?”

The young swordsman narrowed his eyes, drew a slow breath, and then said nothing more. He turned directly and made to leave.

But the moment he turned, the storytelling elder’s voice came from behind him, ”The young hero’s killing intent is hidden very deep. An ordinary person would never be able to detect the young hero’s true nature. But this old one happens to be able to see it. The young hero should be an assassin.”

At those words, the young swordsman stopped abruptly. He slowly turned his head and looked at the storytelling elder, ”The Heavenly Mechanism Pavilion’s people certainly have their abilities. But you and I have no quarrel between us. What do you mean by exposing my identity?”

The storytelling elder’s aged face remained unruffled, and he said calmly, ”This old one simply thought that since the young hero has heard from this old one a piece of news this important, perhaps a mutual exchange would be in order. The young hero might answer this old one one question.”

At those words, the young swordsman’s brow furrowed. He pointed at the small pile of silver coins he had left on the table, ”I paid for it.”

The storytelling elder shook his head and said, ”My question is actually quite simple. Just tell me whether you are from the Soul-Chasing Hall or the Hidden Kill Pavilion.”

Within the entire territory of Great Li, the two most active assassin organizations at present were the Soul-Chasing Hall and the Hidden Kill Pavilion.

Of the two, the Hidden Kill Pavilion had a lineage of at least a thousand years, making it one of the oldest assassin organizations in the entire martial world, with members active across all five nations.

The Soul-Chasing Hall had been established for at least several hundred years, though it had been nearly wiped out some fifteen or sixteen years ago, and had only reappeared in the martial world in recent years.

But since its return, the Soul-Chasing Hall had been responsible for a number of major operations, killing many important figures from both the martial world and the Great Li court. A considerable number of Great Li’s officials and senior administrators had died at the Soul-Chasing Hall’s hands.

The young swordsman did not understand the storytelling elder’s purpose in asking, and he had no intention of revealing his origins, so he simply shook his head and said, ”I do not have time to answer your question.”

With that, the young swordsman turned directly and moved to leave. But right at that moment, the storytelling elder’s voice came again with a musing tone, ”Even if the young hero does not say, this old one could probably guess. The young hero should be from the Hidden Kill Pavilion.”

At those words, the young swordsman visibly flinched almost imperceptibly, but he paid no attention to the storytelling elder whatsoever and simply kept walking.

Even so, the storytelling elder’s voice pressed on in his ear without relenting, ”The young hero is not a native of Lan Province. You have come here with a purpose. As it happens, this old one has heard that when the Great Li Eighth Prince was in Shangyang City, he came to possess a Hidden Kill Pavilion Hidden Kill Order. And by the Hidden Kill Pavilion’s rules, calculating the time, you should be ready to make your move against the Eighth Prince.”

”So perhaps the young hero has come to Lan Province to carry out an assassination against the Eighth Prince?”

...

At those words, the young swordsman’s foot caught mid-step, and he very nearly lost his footing entirely.

Seeing him stop, the storytelling elder knew he had identified the young swordsman’s identity correctly, and stroked his beard with a look of satisfaction, ”The young hero need not be tense. This old one bears you no ill will. Even though you are from the Hidden Kill...”

But before the storytelling elder could finish his sentence, the young swordsman whipped around and snapped, ”Old man, keep your mouth shut!”

At those words, the storytelling elder’s brow furrowed. He was about to continue speaking, but a glance at the edge of his vision made him stop.

At the same moment, the storytelling elder noticed that three people were walking into the small city’s tavern.

A handsome young gentleman, a strikingly beautiful young woman, and a middle-aged man dressed as a coachman.

And following close by the young gentleman was a large black cat.

The big black cat was roughly the size of a large dog, which was genuinely remarkable. Even the storytelling elder, who had seen a great deal of the world, had never in his life encountered a cat of this size.

Even so, the storytelling elder did not recognize any of the three. He simply noticed that when the young swordsman caught sight of the three of them, he appeared to become extremely tense all at once.

It was this that caused the storytelling elder to start paying attention to what was, admittedly, a rather unusual group.

At that moment, the storytelling elder was also quietly trying to work out in his mind who these people were, that they could make a Hidden Kill Pavilion assassin handle them with such care.

At that point, the young swordsman was still standing in place. But having silenced the storytelling elder, he had immediately lowered his head, not looking at the three people who had arrived.

Or rather, at that moment he did not dare to look at Li Musheng, who had just entered the tavern.

The truth was that the storytelling elder had been entirely right.

The young swordsman was indeed a Hidden Kill Pavilion assassin in disguise, and more than that, this trip to Lan Province had indeed been undertaken for Li Musheng’s sake.

By the Hidden Kill Pavilion’s rules, anyone who held a Hidden Kill Order for more than twenty-four hours continued to hold it, and after that point the Pavilion would dispatch assassins to begin attempts on the holder’s life.

If the target survived three assassination attempts from Hidden Kill Pavilion assassins, they were entitled to take the position of Pavilion Master, commanding all the Hidden Kill Pavilion’s assassins.

Li Musheng had had the Hidden Kill Order for a time already, well past twenty-four hours.

And as soon as the time was up, the Hidden Kill Pavilion had selected and dispatched its first assassin to attempt Li Musheng’s life.

The young swordsman happened to be that assassin.

By rights, the first wave of assassination from the Hidden Kill Pavilion should have been the weakest of the three.

But the young swordsman was anything but weak. Among the Hidden Kill Pavilion’s newest generation of young assassins, he was ranked at the very top.

From the day he had first killed, he had conducted no fewer than a hundred assassinations in total, and still maintained an unbroken record of success without a single failure.

He was only around thirty years old, and had already reached the Great Grandmaster realm in martial cultivation, and he had deep expertise in the art of the hidden kill, never failing to take a life in a single strike.

The reason the Hidden Kill Pavilion had dispatched him was naturally because of Li Musheng’s unusual status as a prince. The protection of powerful martial artists around him would make the assassination considerably more difficult, and so a standout among the young assassins had been sent for the first attempt.

For the young swordsman, this was also an enormously important opportunity. If this assassination succeeded and he took down Li Musheng, a Great Li prince, his name in the assassin world would rise dramatically, and the Hidden Kill Pavilion would invest heavily in developing him. In the future he might even aspire to reach the legendary realm of ”Assassination Saint.”

When he had first taken the assignment, the young swordsman had been full of ambition.

He had gathered extensive intelligence on Li Musheng and drawn up what he considered a foolproof plan of assassination, tailored to his status as a prince.

But unfortunately, before he could act, Li Musheng had gone off script entirely, for some unknown reason slipping out of the imperial capital in secret.

This not only rendered the assassination plan he had spent so much effort on completely useless, it also meant he had lost track of Li Musheng.

For an assassin, this was no small setback. But in the end, after a period of investigation, he had managed to pick up Li Musheng’s trail.

And so, following that trail across several provinces, he had finally arrived here in Lan Province.

At first the young swordsman had not known what Li Musheng’s purpose was. He only knew that the other party’s departure from the capital seemed to be connected to the Tianjin Guards in some way.

At one point he had even wondered whether the Tianjin Guards, having learned of the Hidden Kill Order, had arranged this as a deliberate protective measure against the Hidden Kill Pavilion.

It was only after arriving in Lan Province that he had begun to sense something bigger might be at play.

And just now, after listening to everything the storytelling elder had said, it had struck him with a delayed realization. The target he had been sent to assassinate, the Great Li Eighth Prince, had not left the imperial capital to avoid his assassination attempt at all.

The man’s actual purpose had been to lead the destruction of Falling God Peak, one of the four great martial world sects.

In that one instant, the young swordsman had been as though struck by lightning.

Especially after hearing that Li Musheng had single-handedly pointed a Peak Master to death, and cut down both a Peak Master and the four honored elders, he had felt his spine turn to ice, his soul and courage shaking with an overwhelming terror.

Sending an assassin with only Great Grandmaster cultivation to kill someone who could rival a Martial God, was this something a human being could do?

Fortunately his conditioning as an assassin was strong enough that he had been able to keep his true emotions suppressed, showing nothing unusual outwardly.

Even so, he had not managed to hide it entirely. His composure had cracked enough that the storytelling elder had caught a few telltale signs.

Even so, though his identity had been exposed, the young swordsman had been in no mental state to deal with it, and had no desire to get drawn into further exchanges.

What he had been thinking at the time was to confirm the storytelling elder’s news as quickly as possible and then leave Lan Province immediately.

This life-threatening assassination assignment was something he absolutely could not see through. Let the Pavilion send whoever else it wished.

Just because an assassin was cold and merciless did not mean they were not afraid to die.