MTLNOVEL chapter 374
Truly Deserving of the Name
In the end, Ye Yong decided to take a gamble, turning a bicycle into a motorcycle.
If Peng Zhang hadn’t issued a kill order yet, it wouldn’t be long before he did. He needed to cherish the time he wasn’t being targeted by the demon clan. If the order had already been given, he would have to go out sooner or later; it was something he had to face.
Moreover, with the Nine Directions Sun and Moon Demon Seeking Disk he had purchased earlier, demons below the Great Ascension stage would have nowhere to hide within five kilometers. Ye Yong didn’t believe that Peng Zhang could summon a Great Ascension demon to kill him.
Forget it, better not raise a flag.
After putting on the items that could resist Divine Transformation attacks, Ye Yong took out a high-level communication talisman to inform the two vice sect leaders of his outing. After receiving permission, he changed into a low-key gray outfit, masked his aura, and left Tianluo Sect without attracting any attention.
Wearing a fox mask that concealed his appearance, he hopped onto his increasingly beloved little magic carpet. Using his memories from the novel combined with the electronic map sold by the system, Ye Yong headed toward the task location.
As for why he didn’t clear out the place where the protagonist would gain opportunities in advance, the larger ones weren’t yet time-sensitive, so he wouldn’t mention them. The smaller and medium-sized opportunities had too many variables; clearing them out too early would mean the Heavenly Dao would have more time to correct itself. By then, the protagonist wouldn’t go to those looted places but would be guided elsewhere, which would be a waste of effort. So the safest approach was to be just a little ahead of the protagonist.
Sitting on the little magic carpet, feeling the speed boost from his recent advancement, Ye Yong patted it with satisfaction. The hundreds of refining essence points hadn’t been wasted; the little magic carpet was now a fifth-tier mystical flying tool. With a bit more time, reaching the Earth and Heaven levels wouldn’t be a problem.
The Demon-Hunting Plate showed no abnormalities for the time being. If Peng Zhang had truly issued a kill order, Ye Yong felt that Ye Qingwu would have appeared immediately to warn him of the danger, so he wasn’t too worried for now.
After flying for most of the day, Ye Yong arrived at a forest located a hundred miles away from Tianluo Sect.
There were several villages near the forest, each with dozens of households. In a vast world filled with mortals as numerous as ants, these villages were considered small.
Ye Yong remembered that Long Tian’s task was to eliminate a pack of Qinghua Wolves, whose cultivation level was around the fourth layer of crystallization. The claws and fangs of the Qinghua Wolves were laced with beast poison; a cultivator of low realm would quickly succumb to the poison if bitten and not treated in time, and as for mortals, they didn’t even need to be bitten—just a touch would be fatal. There was a reason cultivators looked down on mortals; they were incredibly weak, lacking combat power, and often caused unnecessary trouble.
That pack of Qinghua Wolves had only migrated here in the past few days and had not yet approached the villages. However, once they settled down and established their territory, the surrounding villages would undoubtedly suffer.
Ye Yong hovered above the forest. He didn’t immediately seek out the cave of the Golden Core elder by the nearby river; instead, he pondered whether to prevent a tragedy from occurring.
Ye Yong was well aware of what kind of person Long Tian was—a true calamity star, a harbinger of misfortune. Anyone who dared to approach him without a strong enough life force was doomed to die.
In the novel, Long Tian completed the task of exterminating the Qinghua Wolves and was thanked by the nearby villages, who invited him to a meal before he left. Unexpectedly, the people from the Black Mantis Sect suddenly attacked.
Having suffered losses at the hands of this unknown little ghost multiple times, the Black Mantis Sect was well-prepared this time, filled with murderous intent, completely disregarding the presence of mortals, and launched a direct assault. As a result, the villagers did not die at the jaws of the Qinghua Wolves but instead fell victim to the encounter with the protagonist.
Faced with assassins who had the advantage in both numbers and strength, Long Tian was powerless, forced to watch innocent villagers perish, and ultimately was driven into the nearby river, where he found the cave and executed a desperate counterattack within.
Ye Yong looked at the uncles and aunts toiling in the fields, and the children playing along the path by the fields. Although he felt that life and death were fated and repeatedly told himself that they were mere mortals unworthy of his time, he still sighed and decided to attempt a rescue.
How to proceed was a dilemma. Ye Yong couldn’t expose his presence here. After some thought, he planned to reduce the number of Qinghua Wolves by more than half, making it easier for Long Tian to eliminate them. As for how to avoid being ambushed by assassins during the meal, Ye Yong had also thought it through. He would leave a mark of the Black Mantis Sect in the village; upon seeing it, Long Tian would surely become alert, either leaving directly or seeking revenge for Liu Bo, killing more assassins and luring them to a deserted area.
With a plan in mind, Ye Yong descended at the edge of the forest, stowed away his small magic carpet, and ventured deeper. While aura-enhancing items were effective against people, they were less so against spirit beasts, as the latter relied on senses like smell to detect changes in their surroundings.
Before long, Ye Yong was discovered and surrounded by a pack of Qinghua Wolves. After a rough count, there were sixteen of them, the highest cultivation being at the sixth layer of crystallization, and the lowest at the third layer.
The fur of the Qinghua Wolves was predominantly green, and they were small and agile. Ye Yong didn’t want to leave any traces of battle or scare them away, so he opted for a guerrilla tactic, running ahead while the wolves chased behind.
Whenever someone’s speed exceeded that of the main group, Ye Yong would turn a corner. The next moment, when the main group followed the turn, they would find their companion who had been chasing ahead had vanished, while the human remained.
Spirit beasts at the crystallization level had not yet developed high intelligence and didn’t think much of it. Ye Yong employed this trick several times, and soon the pack of sixteen wolves was reduced to four, all at the lowest cultivation level. They chased after him, panting heavily, and eventually, too exhausted to continue, returned to the center of the forest to rest.
As for where their companions had gone, they had no idea. Not sensing any blood, they subconsciously believed they had merely scattered and would return later.
Meanwhile, in a certain part of the forest, looking at the
—
Selling to the shops would soon lead to those families acquiring and dividing it up, leaving no trace behind. How could the steady-as-a-rock Ye Yong possibly make a mistake?
Having sorted out the duration for the protagonist to complete the task, the next step was to alert the assassins of the impending attack. Ye Yong was unsure which village Long Tian would head to, so he left subtle, exclusive markings of the Black Mantis Sect at the entrances and exits of each village. Even if Long Tian didn’t see them, the old man of the Fallen Immortals would surely notice.
With everything that needed to be done completed, whether the villagers could survive now depended on their luck.
Ye Yong was no great benefactor; he couldn’t interfere too much. He left the village and made his way to a nearby river, submerging himself in the water, releasing his consciousness to search for the cave dwellings upstream.
Meanwhile, over ten kilometers away in the sky, a young man dressed in the attire of the Sword Pavilion of the Tian Luo Sect was flying towards the forest on his sword.