The next morning at dawn.
The special training class students filed out, yawning one after another, all looking listless and drained—few had any energy to spare.
The bound mercenaries in the rear were even worse off, each sporting heavy dark circles under their eyes. After being captured last night, they'd been strung up from the rafters.
"Finally out of the Dragon Bone Mountain Range!"
Zhang Qi yawned as he spoke.
The others nodded in shared sentiment.
The week-long training trip to the Dragon Bone Mountain Range had been exciting at first.
But after a full week of drilling, it had grown dull.
Fighting magical beasts day in and day out—that was risking your life every second.
Still, the results were good. They'd stopped the beast outbreaks, driven off the monsters, and restored peace to the nearby villages and towns.
Through real combat and bloodshed, what had once been flashy but hollow martial arts now looked halfway decent.
Plus, they'd confiscated a fair number of spirit cores along the way—might even sell for a few gold coins back home.
An Yi, Instructor, are you really going to the city lord's mansion?
Ye Tian looked at An Yi, his expression incredulous.
This guy was insane!
Didn't he know the entire Eastern Ling Empire had a bounty on his head?
An Yi grinned, flashing his teeth. "Heh, being framed as the Demon King out of nowhere—I need to go have a little chat with that old bastard Qi Hong about it."
Ye Tian's mouth twitched.
A chat?
You're joking. This guy? The type to reason with people?!
"An Yi, Instructor, should we hand them over to the city guards?"
Liu Yu said, lifting Tian Mao by the collar, lost in thought.
An Yi prompted her, "And what do you think we should—"
"Kill him!"
Liu Yu flashed a cold, vicious smile.
That's my girl!
An Yi nodded with satisfaction. "In that case—"
"What are you thinking?"
Zi Yun reached over and pinched his waist, shooting him a dirty look.
These were members of the Mercenary Guild.
And they were all Spiritual Ascension-tier practitioners, likely at a decent rank. If they actually killed them, the feud would be set in stone.
Fine, then we'll escort them to the city lord's mansion. I'll go alone—today is a day off for all of you!
An Yi said with a smile.
"Yes!"
The special training class cheered in unison.
...
Stepping into the city lord's mansion once more, An Yi couldn't help but feel a wave of nostalgia.
Though it was clear Qi Hong was feeling a lot more of it. Seated off to the side, cold sweat never stopped rolling down his forehead, and his voice trembled as he spoke.
"A-An Yi, sir, what brings you here today?"
The shadow of An Yi's last visit still lingered, he never thought that barely a few months later, this man would be back!
And the hell of it was—
Based on the aura, this guy seemed to have gotten stronger!
How many days had it been?!
Like last time, An Yi wore the fiend mask, his entire demeanor vastly different, weighing heavily on Qi Hong's nerves.
Qi Hong suddenly thought of something, his face turning pale: "An Yi, sir, I did not spread your reputation! The bounty on your head—it truly has nothing to do with me! You have to believe me!"
Last time, An Yi had slaughtered several of his mansion's top fighters and extorted a hefty sum of money. After that, Qi Hong had completely fallen in line.
All things considered, he and An Yi had no real grudge.
For him, as long as his idiot son Qi Zun stayed alive and none of his wives cuckolded him, nothing else counted as a major vendetta.
Naturally, he wouldn't go out of his way to make trouble by spreading An Yi's name.
Unless he wanted to die!
Bringing that up gave An Yi a headache.
He'd originally wanted some modest publicity, but now his infamy had grown too big—and that was a problem in itself.
"I know it's not you. You saw the mercenaries I delivered a while back, didn't you?"
An Yi tapped the table lightly with his fingers.
Each knock seemed to fall directly on Qi Hong's heart, filling him with dread.
"Y-yes, I saw them. They're well-known mercenaries here in the Eastern Ling Empire. The leader is Tian Mao—he once slaughtered an entire village, assaulted the local chief's wife and daughter, fled as a fugitive, and later joined the Mercenary Guild, which let him roam the Eastern Ling Empire openly again. The others are much the same—major criminals who were once wanted."
Qi Hong explained.
People from the Mercenary Guild were known trash—all desperate outlaws who lived with their lives on the line.
Ordinary folk wouldn't dare provoke them. Who would've thought this big shot would bring them right into the City Lord's mansion?
An Yi frowned slightly. As expected, they were all garbage!
"Then according to imperial law, what should be done with these bastards and their crimes?"
"Done with?"
Qi Hong was taken aback, then forced himself to say, "They might... might be released without charge..."
"What do you mean? Just because they joined the Mercenary Guild, they can't be executed?"
An Yi stared at Qi Hong, his voice cold.
Qi Hong broke into a fresh round of cold sweat and said hastily, "Sir, please, you must be joking. That's the Mercenary Guild. Even the imperial capital wouldn't dare cross them!"
At the end of the day, among the thousand-odd empires of the ancient continent, the Eastern Ling Empire was just an average nation.
Not great, not terrible.
But the Mercenary Guild—that was a force spanning the entire continent.
For the Eastern Ling Empire to pick a fight with them would be like an egg smashing against a rock.
So when these criminals joined the guild, they got the guild's protection, letting them waltz right past imperial law and act with total impunity.
In general, as long as things didn't go too far, the Eastern Ling Empire would look the other way and tolerate their existence.
An Yi's eyes turned icy: "A pack of cowards."
Qi Hong had no retort.
This wasn't something he was going to touch.
Since he couldn't afford to offend either side, he'd just play the fool and stay out of it.
Just then, a city guard hurried into the main hall.
"Report! The Mercenary Guild's vice president requests an audience!"
Qi Hong's expression shifted dramatically the moment he heard that, and he hurriedly waved his hand: "Quick—show him in!"
"No need. I've already arrived."
At that moment, a middle-aged man with curly gray hair appeared in the doorway.
His stern, imposing gaze swept over Qi Hong and An Yi inside the room, a hint of contempt flickering across his face.
"Vice President Wang Xu! I had no idea you were coming—please forgive my lack of welcome!"
Qi Hong bowed eagerly as he went to greet him.
An Yi, however, remained perfectly calm, legs crossed, utterly unmoved, as if he didn't even consider the vice president worth his attention.
Vice President Wang Xu raised a hand, silencing the blabbering Qi Hong.
"You're An Yi, I take it."
Wang Xu stared at An Yi's fiend mask, a cold smile curling on his lips.
"What, planning to arrest me?"
An Yi looked at him, chuckling lightly.
"Those stories about you—pure rumor. After all, the law requires evidence."
Wang Xu said lazily, taking a seat across from An Yi.
He'd heard all the recent uproar about that so-called Demon King An Yi.
Things like slaughtering cities, killing ten thousand people—complete nonsense.
As for escaping the Skyward Tower... that was a laughably ridiculous fabrication!
Criminals locked in the Skyward Tower were all ones too powerful to execute—each carrying sins too heavy to count.
If he truly had come out of the Skyward Tower, the whole Eastern Ling Empire would be cowering in hiding, not daring to post any bounty.
Besides, from what he'd investigated, it was obvious someone had spread those claims deliberately.
Some truth, some lies, half-real, half-fake.
Who knows—maybe some young master from a noble family was just trying to hype up his own image with a made-up backstory.
Honestly, Wang Xu hadn't taken An Yi seriously at all.
An Yi tapped his fingers lightly on the table and said lazily, "The vice president's ears are sharp enough—trouble had barely just broken out, and here you are, hot on its heels."
Wang Xu gave a cold, sinister smile. "Between us, there's no need to beat around the bush. I hope you'll hand over the White Python, or else..."
"Or else what?"
An Yi asked with a mocking look.
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
y came from. The chests contained supplies, currency, class-change scrolls, skills, talents… and even godhood! The laws of the world were completely rewritten. This became a world where everyone gambled with their fate! Some people, despite having nothing, opened a divine artifact and rose to the top, eventually ruling the world. Others went bankrupt, opened nothing but worthless junk, and leaped from skyscrapers in despair. Lin Ye arrived in this world from another reality, utterly bewildered. “What is going on? Why is everyone a gambling addict?!” “Opening chests? No way. I refuse to gamble. I’ll start with myself!” Until— On his first chest, he obtained a Mythic Talent: Void Incarnation! He could become completely intangible, pass through all things, and reduce everything to nothingness! … On his fiftieth chest, he obtained a Mythic Weapon: Blade of Karma! With a single slash, karma shattered, twisting the universe and overturning the myriad phenomena of creation! … On his ninety-ninth chest, he obtained a Mythic Divine Treasure: Primordial Purple Energy! It could split open the heavens and earth, create all things, and evolve countless worlds with a single thought! Lin Ye: “Now that I think about it… shouldn’t someone have told me that every chest is guaranteed to contain something Mythic?!”
