Ye Zichen didn’t lower his hand. He just held it in front of Huang Aogu expectantly. They’d already given Ye Zichen all of their spatial rings, so this was obviously just making trouble.
Huang Aogu had already lost an arm to Ye Zichen. Rage was building up in his heart.
He instantly lost his temper. “Brat, don’t push me too far.” He was so angry, his entire body radiated a bloody mist. The blood vessels in his eyes burst; he’d practically gone mad with fury.
“I’m ‘pushing you too far?’” Ye Zichen suddenly laughed. Then, the next instant, his expression soured, becoming as dark and deep as an autumn pool. “Just which one of us is ‘pushing others too far?’ You people keep making trouble for me, but I’ve never once blamed you for it. Now you’re telling me I’m over the line? Fine, then. I’m sorry, but today, I’m going to bully you. What can you do about it?”
Ye Zichen was angry too. He just wanted to relax and enjoy the God Realm for a while. Once his immortal power was fully converted to divine power, he could ascend to the Divine Mountains and go to the Yao Realm…..
He’d never gone out of his way to antagonize others, yet this Axe Gang kept looking for trouble.
It seemed that just talking smack wasn’t enough, so Ye Zichen slapped Huang Aogu across the face. “Now I’m slapping your dirty mouth. What are you going to do about it?”
The onlookers dared not speak. Ye Zichen’s tone was wantonly arrogant, but everything he said was true. There was nothing any of them could do to stop him.
Peh!
Huang Aogu coughed up a mouthful of broken teeth. He no longer had any desire to beg for his life. “If you’ve got the guts, go ahead and kill me. So long as you spare even one of us, we’ll report this to our gang’s headquarters. Let me tell you, our main boss is a sky immortal expert, and he’s not the only one. You might be a sky immortal too, but there’s something you might not know: our Axe Gang is a subordinate of the Green Gang, which has immortal kings and supremes! From the moment you first provoked us, your fate was sealed.”
With that, Huang Aogu laughed hysterically, his gaze twisted hideously as he looked at Ye Zichen. He wasn’t afraid to die….. But Ye Zichen had to go down with him.
Then, inexplicably, Ye Zichen smiled. His smile contained a hint of pity. The way he saw it, Huang Aogu was truly pitiful.
What a pity! He was nothing but a frog in a well who thought too highly of himself.
“Your Axe Gang is powerful, so you think you can just rob and bully whoever you want? Then, the moment someone robs you back, you’re suddenly so upset you think you can just sentence someone to death? Who gave you the right? Your Axe Gang is no soft target, but does that mean I am?” He flipped his hand, summoning the immortal blade, then pressed it against Huang Aogu’s neck.
“Kill me! If you’ve got balls, kill me! So long as I die, the jade slip containing a trace of my soul will shatter. When the gang leader sees that, he’ll send people to investigate, then get revenge for me. Countless sky immortals will be after you. You’ll never sleep peacefully again, ha ha ha…...
Splurt!
The sword swung with no hesitation. After a flash of sword light, Huang Aogu’s head thudded to the ground.
Huang Aogu laughed hysterically even as his head separated from his neck. As his head hit the ground, he stared directly into Ye Zichen’s eyes, as if he were saying…..
I might have died, but you won’t live much longer either!
The other captains were stunned. Their former terror was nothing compared to the shock of witnessing Huang Aogu’s death with their own eyes.
He was really dead!
By now, most of them didn’t even dare look at Ye Zichen for fear that the moment they met his eyes, their heads would be the next to fall to the ground.
At the same time, Ye Zichen indifferently put away the immortal blade, looked the severed head in the eye, and said, “Sky Immortals? In my eyes, even immortal kings aren’t worth a fart!”
Ye Zichen no longer paid Huang Aogu’s headless corpse any attention. Instead, he slowly approached the surviving captains. As he approached, the captains’ legs trembled uncontrollably. In their eyes, Ye Zichen was an emissary of Hades, here to send them to their graves.
“You…..” Ye Zichen started to speak, but before he could finish his sentence, several of the captains knelt on the ground and started kowtowing repeatedly.
As Ye Zichen watched them kneel, his cold expression softened. “There’s no need to be afraid,” he laughed amiably, “I’m not the bloodthirsty type. Right now, you have two paths before you. You can become my subordinates or…. You can die. What’ll it be?”
….
The sun set.
The rosy pink sky faded to a red so bright, it looked like freshly shed blood.
Two corpses lay outside the city walls. The first belonged to Huang Aogu, the second to Zhao Ye. In truth, when Ye Zichen offered the captains a choice, all of them, Zhao Ye included, chose to pledge their allegiance. However, considering how close Zhao Ye had been to Huang Aogu, as well as his rift with Wei Jie, Scarface decided it was better to just kill him.
The Axe Gang’s base in Raging Flame City was now gone for good. In its place, Ye Zichen established a new faction.
“Upheaval!”
Valiant heroes were only born in turbulent times. Opportunities were only found in unrest.
Ye Zichen wanted to bring upheaval to the God Realm. This was the only way he could change its current territorial divisions, which had long since been set in stone. Raging Flame City was his starting point, but his ambitions wouldn’t end there.
Every member of the Axe Gang’s Raging Flame City base joined their ranks. Wei Jie took on the role of gang leader, while the base’s former second-ranked captain was promoted directly to vice-leader. The other captains became inner court elders, while many ordinary members with exceptional talent took roles in the outer court.
To Ye Zichen, founding his new gang, Upheaval, was just a start, but to the former members of the Axe Gang, it was an opportunity.
Ye Zichen naturally couldn’t let his new gang carry on like the Axe Gang had before. He needed to establish new rules. He didn’t return the money he’d stolen either.
They’d only just barely formed their gang, so they needed vast quantities of resources to recruit talents and maintain regular operations.
Founding Upheaval didn’t disrupt the current divisions of Raging Flame City. They simply occupied the Axe Gang’s former territory. All they needed to do now was expand and develop methodically. However, the upper echelons of the city were in uproar as they discussed just what had happened to the Axe Gang and why it had suddenly been replaced with Upheaval.
In any event, a new faction, “Upheaval” was born!
Meanwhile, just as Upheaval started growing systematically, something changed in the Axe Gang’s main headquarters in the Profound Great District.
They had an ancestral hall filled with jade slips. Every higher-ranked member of the gang had one containing a sliver of his or her soul. Someone came in to clean the hall once a week, but in a hundred years, not one of the slips had shattered. As a result, the janitor didn’t pay much attention to them.
Today, the janitor stepped inside as usual, but just as he was about to close the door and start cleaning, he discovered…..
Amongst thousands of jade slips, two…...
Had shattered into pieces!