Chapter 359

Seven Tie clan Gu Masters move quietly through a forest, closing in on San Cha mountain after days of travel without rest. At their front in spirit if not in step is Tie Ba Xiu, tall and steady faced, rank four upper stage. Once spurned and pushed out by his own clan in youth, he rebuilt himself under a righteous inheritance into the strength path. His rank five earth overlord Gu now earns him the name present age overlord, and battle strength beyond an ordinary rank four peak stage fighter. He runs through the rank four peak stage names already massed on San Cha mountain, Long Qing Tian, Yi Chong, Kong Ri Tian, Wu Shen Tong, and Yi Huo, judging the last of them the most dangerous. He wonders, too, what Tie Ruo Nan intends once they arrive. ^{ch. 359}

Tie Ba Xiu is the senior fighter, but this reinforcement group answers to a junior. Tie Ruo Nan was appointed leader as an exception by the clan’s higher ups, after years of hard cultivation earned her a place among Tie clan’s eight young masters and the name little divine investigator. Tie Ba Xiu feels no jealousy. He owes a private debt to her late father, Divine Investigator Tie Xue Leng, who helped him when he was down and out, and he is glad to serve as her stepping stone. Her crew already shows her pull. Tie Mu, rank three peak stage and gentlemanly, turned down other invitations to join her. Tie Ao Kai, rank three upper stage, is a sharp investigator despite a sleepy manner. Tie Dao Ku left another young master’s service for hers, and Tie Xian Hua, young and beautiful, is praised even by clan elders for her defense. Tie Ba Xiu pictures her crew growing until she contends for the position of clan leader, a chance every one of the eight young masters holds. ^{ch. 359}

Tie Ruo Nan had not planned to come, until word reached her of hidden details behind what happened on Qing Mao mountain, where her father lost his life. Anything touching him she has to chase down, so she requested the assignment herself. She means, she repeats to herself, to learn the truth about Bai Ning Bing, about Fang Zheng, and about Qing Mao mountain. ^{ch. 359}

The group holds a standing battle formation as it moves: Tie Ao Kai scouting ahead, Tie Ruo Nan and Tie Ba Xiu at its center, a healer and the defensive Tie Xian Hua at the rear. It can attack or fall back without breaking order. Tie Ao Kai halts and calls out an alarm, and the formation tightens into its battle array. On a boulder above them stands a lone man in tight black clothes, arms crossed, his eyes dark as an abyss. Tie Ruo Nan recognizes him at once and blurts out his name, Fang Zheng. The man is Fang Yuan underneath it, and he greets her by name with a grim smile. ^{ch. 359}

Tie Ruo Nan offers him a way out: come to Tie clan as a guest and answer for the Tie Gu Master Bai Ning Bing killed in her escape from the three kings inheritance. She will plead for leniency, she says, so the clan drops the matter. Fang Yuan dismisses the killing as no sin at all beyond the victim’s connections, and mocks the offer as a trap meant to deliver him into Tie clan’s hands. He then reveals that Divine Thief Lu Zuan Feng has been raiding Tie clan, even slipping in and out of its Demon Suppression Tower at will, a secret the clan has kept even from Wu clan and Shang clan. The group pales. Tie Ba Xiu refuses to believe an outsider could know it, but Tie Ao Kai reports no one else lurks nearby, and Tie Ruo Nan concludes Fang Yuan means to trade the secret for Bai Ning Bing’s life. ^{ch. 359}

Fang Yuan laughs the idea off: he came, he says, to strike the reinforcements while besieging their stronghold, meaning to fight the whole group himself. The seven, sure their numbers make the threat absurd, a rank four upper stage senior and a rank four initial stage leader backed by five rank three experts against one man, wonder if he has lost his mind. He answers with a sudden pounce from the boulder, like a goshawk dropping on the group. Only then do they feel his true aura. Only then, with a shock that stuns Tie Ruo Nan most of all, do they realize he stands at rank four middle stage rather than the rank four initial stage their intelligence had promised. ^{ch. 359}