Chapter 36: Washing the Dock with Blood (2)

By the time Li Yue managed to charge onto the scene with the rest of the Long Clear Gang members, everything was in complete disorder, and corpses were littered everywhere.

“Su Chen, you dare!”

Upon seeing this scene, Li Yue’s eyes became bloodshot.

The Clear River Dock was the Long Clear Gang’s most important source of revenue. It was a foundational location for them. Because of this, those responsible for guarding this place were also Li Yue’s most trusted and capable underlings.

Now, all of his trusted aids had been taken out in one fell swoop by Su Chen.

Su Chen stood on the bloody dock and laughed coldly as he stared at the Long Clear Gang leader, “Shouldn’t I be saying that? Li Yue, you are quite bold to dare kill Liu Jiyun, an official of the Origin Bureau. Killing a government official is equivalent to conspiring against the state. Do you acknowledge your crimes?”

Li Yue’s eyes burned with rage. “You dare slander me without evidence?”

“Slander? Do I need to?” Su Chen raised his hand. “This is the Origin Ring I took from Lu Tianyang’s hand. It originally belonged to Sir Liu and is engraved with his personal seal. There are even a few of Sir Liu’s personal items in here that weren’t taken care of yet. This is rock-solid evidence; do you still dare to refuse to admit what happened?”

Li Yue jabbed his finger at Su Chen. “You’re framing me!”

“Whether or not you’re being framed, you know the best. If you aren’t satisfied, you can appeal to the higher ups. But in the meantime, I must detain you. Go and take him away!”

“You dare!” Li Yue howled.

He knew that he was in a tough spot.

Now that Su Chen had the Origin Ring, the Long Clear Gang had to make a move even if Su Chen didn’t.

He waved his arm and yelled, “Attack!”

A large wave of gangsters charged forward from behind him.

At this point, no one had any ground to retreat to. If they wanted to live, they would need to win this battle here!

If Su Chen won, the matter of the Long Clear Gang murdering an official would become set in stone.

If the Long Clear Gang won, then Su Chen would be blackmailing people for private gain and would damage private trust.

This was a battle in which whoever won would be considered the “righteous” party.

Both sides had made the decision to fight to the death.

The large group of gang members surged forward, yelling wildly. Their blades had all tasted blood before, and they seemed to have some measure of bloodthirstiness. If they really went all out, they might not be much weaker than the Origin Bureau’s martial artists.

Even so, at the same time that they charged forward, what awaited them was a storm of arrows falling from the sky.

The razor-sharp arrows whistled through the air.

These gang members didn’t have any armor. The rain of arrows descended, causing blood to cover the streets. Most of them didn’t even have a chance to swing their blades before they died on the street that they had been charging up.

“Army crossbows?” Li Yue yelled in disbelief.

These crossbows were clearly not common crossbows; rather, they were the heavy crossbows used by the military. Even though they weren’t Origin Qi Tools, they were weapons very close in strength to Origin Qi Tools. Their offensive capabilities were formidable. Just twenty crossbow-wielding soldiers were enough to pose a serious threat to an Origin Qi Scholar. If they numbered in the hundreds, they could even threaten a Blood Boiling Realm cultivator. They basically represented the peak strength that a commoner could achieve.

The issue was that these heavy crossbows were only owned by the military; the Origin Bureau shouldn’t have had any.

Where had Su Chen gotten so many of them from?

There were quite a few people wielding those crossbows; he estimated that there were at least fifty of them.

Those fifty or so crossbow-wielding people weren’t wearing the Origin Bureau’s azure uniform or the Blood-Robed Guards’ uniform. Rather, they were dressed up as servants. They were obviously the Su Palace’s guards!

In other words, these fifty heavy crossbows weren’t given to him by the Origin Bureau. Su Chen had somehow managed to procure them himself.

Upon realizing this point, Li Yue felt fear for the first time.

Who exactly was Su Chen?

But at this point, he couldn’t afford to regret anymore. He understood very clearly that he could only regain control of the situation by killing Su Chen.

When he thought of this, he raised his hand in the air. The countless crossbow bolts suddenly came to a halt in midair as if they had been put on a leash by someone.

Next, Li Yue waved his hand. Those crossbow bolts all clattered to the ground.

Li Yue then gathered all of the bolts and sent them flying back. The rain of arrows appeared again, but they were headed in Su Chen’s direction this time.

“Rah! Leader is so strong!” all of the gang members began to yell.

“Su Chen, no matter what tricks you use, we live in an age where only strength is respected! It doesn’t matter how much you scheme if you don’t have enough strength!” Li Yue’s amplified voice spread to every corner of the dock.

He was trying to use this tactic to attack the peoples’ faith in Su Chen.

No matter what, Su Chen was still in the Blood Boiling Realm.

A person in the Blood Boiling Realm couldn’t possibly defeat someone in the Yang Opening Realm.

“Is that so?” Su Chen smiled slightly as he reached his hand out, his fingers outstretched. The rain of crossbow bolts began to rapidly decelerate as if they had encountered some invisible resistance before losing their momentum and falling to the ground. “Two people tried telling me that yesterday too. What do you think the outcome was?”

Li Yue was stunned.

He didn’t ask, and Su Chen didn’t explain himself.

He turned his palm over. An Ultra Erupting Firehawk flew at Li Yue.

The flames forming the Firehawk seemingly threatened to wipe out everything as it rushed at Li Yue like a messenger of death.

Li Yue instinctively felt threatened by this attack.

He screeched. A streak of brilliant light shot into the sky, and a massive white snake rose into the air, slithering through the sky.

White Phosphorus Snake!

This was the benefit that Li Yue had obtained by selling himself to the Lai Clan - the White Phosphorus Snake Bloodline.

As soon as the White Phosphorus Snake appeared, it snaked its way around the Firehawk. The fierce flames slammed into the White Phosphorus Snake’s body, but it seemed as if the flames were illusory. Gradually, the flames began to melt and disappear.

At the same time, the White Phosphorus Snake swung in the air, a massive chilly aura emanating from its body. Everyone felt a chill go up their spines.

Li Yue howled with laughter. “Do you feel it? That’s the fear that comes from death! This is the White Phosphorus Snake’s power! Hades Snakebite!”

The White Phosphorus Snake suddenly began to charge towards the ground.

“Interesting.” Su Chen nodded, activating Sumeru Void once again and greatly reducing the White Phosphorus Snake’s speed. “So relying on normal tactics to defeat a Yang Opening Realm expert is still a bit out of my ability level.”

The Ultra Erupting Firehawk was an extremely powerful bloodline-less Origin Skill, and it would definitely be an invaluable treasure if he were to publicly release it. It was a first-rate Origin Skill. The only reason it didn’t pose much danger to Li Yue was because of the marked difference in cultivation power.

Li Yue was still in the Yang Opening Realm. With the amount of Origin Energy he could control along with the support of his bloodline, it was no surprise that he could wipe out the Ultra Erupting Firehawk.

But to Su Chen, who had some new toys at his disposal, the Erupting-style Origin Skills really were just normal tactics now.

Flames began to gather in his hand once again.

However, the flames this time weren’t nearly as explosive. Rather, they seemed to be imbued with a deathly, gloomy stillness, and the light they gave off was cold.

The dark flames continued to grow and burn, constantly expanding as they began to take on a human-like form.

Su Chen constantly poured his Origin Energy into the human-like flames, which only continued to grow. Its size quickly surpassed Su Chen as it expanded, then past Iron Cliff, growing larger and taller until it reached a size of nearly 30 feet.

“HA!!”

As soon as the massive humanoid appeared, it let out a thunderous howl.

“Attack, Shadow Flame Giant!”

The Shadow Flame Giant howled and swung its fist, the momentum behind its punch threatening to wipe out everything in its path.