Chapter 22: Ambushed

  Guo Huo walked very slowly with a hunched back, as if he

  were actually an old beggar. He didn’t really care about following Jia Yuan

  closely. After all, he had the talisman to keep track of Jia Yuan’s location.

  Oblivious to all this, Jia Yuan made his merry way along the

  streets of RockFire city, heading to the city gate.

  After a few minutes of walking, Jia Yuan reached the city

  gates and passed through without harm.

  However, he wasn’t aware that by the city gate a person had

  been looking for him.

  This mysterious man, upon seeing Jia Yuan exit the city, ran

  to a nearby alley where a bird had been tied down. He wrote a quick message,

  and then tied it to the bird’s leg. Upon doing so, he released the bird and the

  bird flew away.

  As for Guo Huo, he saw this and smiled. Apparently this

  young man he was interested in would have a test in front of him. For Guo Huo, this

  was perfect. Not only would he be able to see the actual combat strength of Jia

  Yuan, but he would be able to see just how the young man’s brain worked.

  After Jia Yuan had walked on the road for about 7 hours, he

  became rather dreary and very tired, and started walking while staring at the

  ground. After all, most he had been doing the last few days was walk and walk

  and walk.

  He didn’t even realize that he had almost walked to the

  village he had saved a few days prior. In fact, he was about a 5 minute walk

  away from said village.

  Usually, he would have been able to see the village. This

  time though, when he raised his head, he was in for a shock.

  For in front of him was about a hundred bandits, dressed in

  the same garb of the ones he had chased out of the village two days prior. Just

  as he registered this, he saw that he had been completely surrounded by what

  seemed to be 500 bandits in total.

  Guo Huo was an astute fellow, so naturally, he had his

  instincts tingling for quite some time before this. As such, he was in position

  to watch Jia Yuan deal with the bandits. When he saw that Jia Yuan hadn’t even

  noticed the hundred bandits quite literally standing in front of his face, Guo

  Huo had a strong urge to just walk back to RockFire City. However, he stayed,

  because he was shocked at just how many bandits had been sent to deal with Jia

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Yuan.

  500 bandits! As the head of the Black Wing Merchant Guild’s

  RockFire City Branch, he knew about the bandits surrounding the city. According

  to his intel, this particular bandit group should only have about 500 to 600

  people! This meant that they had sent basically everyone to deal with Jia Yuan!

  Unfortunately, Guo Huo hadn’t heard about Jia Yuan routing

  the bandits two days prior, or he probably would’ve said it was to be expected.

  After all, even bandits couldn’t stand the shame of having over 50 brothers

  killed by a single child.

  However, his interest was piqued by the scene in front of

  him. How would Jia Yuan respond to his predicament?

  At this time, Guo Huo thought about what he would do in the

  situation.

  “Hmm, let’s see. At the third level of Absorption with at

  least a high level Song, I wouldn’t worry too much about getting instantly

  killed by a hit from one of these bandits. I guess I would have to act as fast

  as possible to test either side of the encirclement where there is no road. I

  would quickly establish which side is weaker and break through that side with

  force. That way, I can escape into the wilderness and it will be hard for the

  bandits to chase me en masse. Of course, I would have to act before the bandits

  close the encirclement too much. If that happens, then I would be dead meat. Unless

  that kid can fly, that should be the best way to approach the situation and

  perhaps the only way to make it out.”

  However, what he saw Jia Yuan do instead…was almost enough

  to make Guo Huo puke.

  Instead of doing any of what Guo Huo had thought of, Jia

  Yuan had instantly drawn his sword from his ring, and had dashed directly

  toward the hundred or so bandits blocking the road in front of him.

  Guo Huo exploded. “You idiot!! That’s the front, and the

  place most likely to have the strongest warriors! What’s more, if you escape

  down the road all of the bandits can just chase you easily! You’ll even lead

  them to the village and you’ll kill them all!”

  It took extremely strong willpower for Guo Huo to actually

  explode with rage.

  However, he kept his calm and crept towards the battle,

  unseen by the bandits or Jia Yuan.