She slowly drew her sword and pointed it at Zhao Ming, who was still venting his emotions.
“This matter has nothing to do with you. If anyone intends to interfere, I don’t mind cutting down a few more people.”
Hua Jian’s voice was slightly cold. The cultivators who were originally a bit wavered looked at each other and scattered from Zhao Ming’s side.
Soon, only the bodyguards Zhao Ming had hired through various means remained by his side.
These people actually had a high level of professional ethics; even though Hua Jian had already drawn her sword, they did not retreat.
“Ha! I knew you had bad intentions! I am ranked fifth on the Genius List! A little piece of trash like you, who doesn’t even have a ranking, actually dares to draw a sword against me!”
‘Why are you talking about the Genius List again?’ Hua Jian was also quite helpless. What kind of person would treat something like the Genius List as if it were a divine decree?
So what if he was rank 5? Based on this man’s performance, Hua Jian felt that his name being on the list was simply an insult to it.
“You should know, you are rank 5 because you are only capable of rank 5. I have no ranking because I disdain participating in such childish games.”
The corners of Hua Jian’s clothes fluttered without any wind. As she spoke those words, her body transformed into countless flower petals and dissipated into the air.
In the next moment, those flower petals condensed in front of one of the bodyguards.
Before the bodyguard could react, Hua Jian gripped his throat with one hand.
Subsequently, countless Vines grew from her hand and pierced into the cultivator’s neck, instantly making his expression turn terrified.
“Oops, that’s not right. I almost forgot that we can’t kill people here for now.” With a casual swing of her sword, she shattered the Spirit Technique attack coming from behind.
Hua Jian threw her hand out, and the cultivator, whose reason had been overwhelmed by terror, was flung like a projectile toward the other bodyguards.
“You all are too weak!”
Who were the people Hua Jian had been fighting these past few days?
A Ling King who had suppressed some of his strength, and Linglong, who had been buffed by the Forbidden Land!
She might have looked like she was being beaten miserably, but that was because her enemies were not people she should be facing at her current stage.
Once she encountered this group of peers, Hua Jian’s performance could only be described as a soaring dragon.
‘Who do you think you are, daring to be mentioned in the same breath as me, Hua Jian?’
‘I can easily abuse you all to death without even using the Magic Mist!’
In just ten or so moves, all of Zhao Ming’s bodyguards were lying on the ground. The brutality of the battle process made the onlookers break into a cold sweat.
What kind of monster was this? She had fought ten people at once!
Although the strength of these bodyguards couldn’t compare to the geniuses on the Genius List, with so many people attacking together, even a genius should have felt a headache, right?
Yet Hua Jian fought them as if she were an adult hitting children—one slap for each person. No one could withstand her attacks.
What was even more terrifying was that after fighting these people, Hua Jian’s face wasn’t red and she wasn’t breathing heavily. Clearly, she still had a lot of strength in reserve.
This kind of strength had completely exceeded their imagination. If Ji Caiyue’s side had such an out-of-spec existence a few days ago, could their Alliance really have fought Ji Caiyue’s Fairy Alliance for so long?
It would have been completely impossible!
So now they completely believed what Hua Jian had said, because such a Great One truly wasn’t someone Ji Caiyue could recruit.
How could such a powerful person be willing to be a subordinate to someone else?
“I warned you not to provoke me. It seems you didn’t hear what I said clearly.” Hua Jian walked toward Zhao Ming, frightening the genius so much that he began to tremble all over.
After taking two steps back, he realized that retreating further was useless. He had to fight back!
That’s right, he was a super genius who wasn’t even afraid of Ji Caiyue. He shouldn’t be afraid of this accomplice of hers either!
“You’ve gone too far! I’ll kill you!” Reaching into his Storage Pouch, Zhao Ming took out a crossbow with a loaded bolt and pulled the trigger at Hua Jian.
Hua Jian had long expected this move. The information she had gathered on the top geniuses was not fake.
Zhao Ming’s actual strength wasn’t very strong among cultivators of the same age; at least, it didn’t reach the level of the top ten geniuses.
His combat power came from his rich and diverse Spirit Tools.
In every battle, he would use a large number of Spirit Tools that shouldn’t appear on a Spirit Master, using this out-of-spec power to drown his enemies.
This type of cultivator was never well-liked, so it was also very strange that Justice Swordsman could get along with him.
That man might have fixed a match, but everything else about him was quite good, and he looked like a steady Sword Cultivator.
Sword Cultivators should hate this way of fighting the most, yet these two had somehow come together.
Clang! Screech!
Accompanied by a piercing sound of metal friction, the crossbow bolt Zhao Ming fired was flicked away by the tip of Hua Jian’s sword.
Seeing that his attack had failed, Zhao Ming immediately reached into his Storage Pouch to pull out another Spirit Tool.
He didn’t believe that with so many Spirit Tools, he couldn’t pile Hua Jian to death.
However, Hua Jian wasn’t an NPC. He could fire the first bolt, but he wouldn’t be able to fire a second.
The distance between the two was already very short, and Hua Jian had a Retreat Technique.
In the time it took for Zhao Ming to reach for the Storage Pouch at his waist, Hua Jian had already surged in front of him and smashed a fist into his face.
A layer of colorful light barrier appeared in front of Zhao Ming, blocking Hua Jian’s attack.
“Body-protecting Spirit Tool? You really are a pay-to-win player. Let’s see if your barrier can take my sharp sword!”
Seeing that her fist hadn’t shattered the barrier in one go, Hua Jian knew that this barrier probably wasn’t a Spirit Tool at the Spirit Master stage either.
An ordinary person would indeed have a headache encountering this turtle shell.
Unfortunately, she was not an ordinary person.
So what if it was a Spirit Tool at the Ling King stage? It wasn’t as if she, Hua Jian, didn’t have one!
‘Pay-to-win players, right? I, Hua Jian, specialize in hitting you rich people!’
The Ling Sword, condensed with the Resentment of the poor, fell heavily, instantly causing Zhao Ming’s protective barrier to be covered in cracks.
At this time, he had just taken out a new Spirit Tool from his Storage Pouch.
In the next second, as Hua Jian exerted force again, his protective barrier shattered completely. Several Vines suddenly grew at the same time, strangling his neck and limbs.
Soon, Zhao Ming was strangled until his eyes rolled back and he started foaming at the mouth. He could no longer hold the Spirit Tool in his hand, and it fell to the ground.
Hua Jian wasn’t polite either. She casually picked up the Spirit Tool and snatched away the Storage Pouch hanging from Zhao Ming’s waist as well.
Hmph, it wasn’t a good thing for such a person to possess this kind of power. It was only natural for her to step in and disable the opponent’s ability to resist.
Just as she was thinking about whether to grant this person a dark Dream, a roar came from afar. “Stop! What are you doing!”
Hua Jian looked up and saw the Sword Cultivator Senior Brother, who had just left, flying back with another person she recognized.
That’s right, it was that match-fixing Justice Swordsman.
The two Sword Cultivators landed on the ground. The Senior Brother stood to the side with his arms crossed, saying nothing, his expression saying, ‘You guys talk, I’m not getting involved.’
It wasn’t good for him to interfere in a conflict between juniors.
Furthermore, out of personal bias, he was more willing to stand on Hua Jian’s side.
He felt that he already understood this girl’s character reasonably well; she didn’t seem like someone who would look for trouble for no reason.
In this situation, it most likely wasn’t Hua Jian’s fault.
“I simply dealt with a discordant element who was looking for trouble. Does Mr. Justice Swordsman have an objection?” Hua Jian waved her hand, releasing the Vines that were entangling Zhao Ming.
As the Vines left, Zhao Ming collapsed to the ground like a pile of mud, motionless for a moment.
“Then why did you snatch his Storage Pouch!”
“He couldn’t beat me, so why shouldn’t I take his things? Or would you rather I kill him and then take them?” Hua Jian tossed the Storage Pouch she had taken and asked with a look of feigned surprise, “So that’s what Justice Swordsman means. Then I’ll help you solve this competitor.”
As she spoke, several Vines with sharp tips appeared around Zhao Ming again, pointing their sharp ends at his neck.
“Don’t you dare slander me! I know very well what kind of person Brother Zhao is. It must be…” Justice Swordsman got halfway through his sentence and found himself unable to continue.
How could he not know that Zhao Ming was a piece of trash? This time, it really might be Zhao Ming’s own fault.
What was even more troublesome was that the person who had knocked Zhao Ming unconscious looked difficult to deal with. With his current strength, trying to stand up for Zhao Ming might lead to him following in Zhao Ming’s footsteps.
“If you want to know what happened, ask the people around you. I was merely conducting a reasonable counterattack.” Hua Jian very skillfully hung the Storage Pouch at her waist. “If you’re not convinced, let’s have a fight too, how about it?”
“You are being so aggressive. Aren’t you afraid of inciting public anger!”
Hua Jian rolled her eyes. ‘You ragtag bunch want to talk about public anger?’
If she weren’t still thinking about using this group as cannon fodder, she could have swallowed all these small fry in one go.
Someone like Justice Swordsman was just a slightly harder little crab; it would just take a bit more effort to eat him. He wasn’t really a threat at all.
“I’m not afraid. I only know one thing: our current goal is to survive. This requires us to work together effectively. In a collaboration, some small discordant noises that interfere with cooperation need to be eliminated as soon as possible, so they don’t become hard-to-handle ailments in the future.”
Hua Jian’s gaze swept over the cultivators beside Justice Swordsman, her voice turning slightly cold.
“Then why should you be the one to eliminate the noise? What qualification do you have!”
This sentence actually made Hua Jian hesitate for a short while. She was debating whether she should appear even more assertive.
Ultimately, she made a decision. She had to be assertive when the time called for it. If she didn’t suppress the arrogance of these people at the first moment, problems would be more likely to occur later.
She wanted to leave a first impression in these people’s minds that ‘Hua Jian is not to be trifled with.’
Only in this way would there be fewer instances of them feigning compliance while secretly undermining things during the subsequent cooperation.
“Qualification? You all can’t beat me; that is my qualification! If you want to object, then let’s see whose sword is sharper, shall we?”