The middle-aged man is absolutely correct, there are guests that came in five groups.

Except for the thunder god temple, all the remaining five powers sent a team each. As for the thunder god temple, they have more people in the empire and even have access to space-gate.

But they didn't dare to send the highly powerful people, because all the powers are now seeing Sam as their treasure, and since they only have access to send people up to Grand realm cultivators they wouldn't just sit and wait if the thunder god temple sends some high-level cultivators.

So, they could only sit and wait while sending the same level candidates as the remaining powers, but they didn't send a three-man team instead, they sent four people and one of them is Arthur.

Since he is the only one who has more contact with Sam, he just broke-through the Grand realm, so now he is not the top dog in the Grand realm rankings of the thunder-god temple, he didn't even reach the top thirty.

So, for now, he doesn't hold much sway here.

He entered the Arian empire from the space-gate along with other three members who are within top-fifty. From their source of information, Sam and his group haven't broken through the Grand realm. All of them are at the peak of the Great realm.

They don't know the reason why, but they just sent the initial stage Grand realm cultivators to deal with them.

Unlike some people, the thunder god temple took another direct approach and that is to deal with Sam directly.

Arthur said that four inheritances are with Sam himself and they also knew how possessive Sam is of his friends from their investigations. If by any chance they missed and Sam knew about their involvement, they would take huge collateral damage.

After all, they heard about how Sam is capable of destroying all the natural resources in the former Orion. Even if he was incapable of dealing with the whole thunder god temple, it is not worth it, even if he behaved like a rabid dog and bit everything that came into his sight. They would surely lose two to three islands under their control.

The thunder god temple made sure that Arc wouldn't tip off Sam about the arrival of these four people. But they didn't know that the moment they entered the vicinities of Sam's city, Sam already knew of their arrival.

The thing is there are some restaurants that are still operating in Sam's city and they are run by Mackey's staff.

Different restaurants open in various places with different styles of cuisines and there is always an influx of new citizens who come and go out of the city every day.

Thus, the four of them just sneaked into the city and tried to blend into the crowd.

But what they don't know is that the citizens that move in and out of the city, the people who are temporarily staying in the city, and every other person who is breathing inside the city are all Sam's people at least they are now working under Sam.

They move in and out because of the construction project that is going on near the vicinity of the capital inside the woods.

All of them are wearing their casual clothes and as the people from the thunder god temple don't know Sam's plans, they just gave themselves away.

And how did that happen? Many people wouldn't notice that there is a small mark embroidered on the chests of every person working under Sam. It is just a tick mark and it is done so stealthily that one would only know it is there if they observe closely.

They also have information that if anyone who doesn't have a mark enters the city, then they are intruders and they have to just relay the information to their supervisors and if possible, bring the images without alerting the intruders at all.

After two days, night time the four of them are having dinner in one of the restaurants.

"Arthur, I think we can take action tonight itself. From what we saw from the past two days, he is retiring to his residence and no one is disturbing him, even the Vulture is being kept afar. There is only one precaution, we have to take him down before he reacts and if not possible, we have to retreat without leaving any evidence of our identities."

The person who seemed to be the team leader of the group said but Arthur didn't reply. They are just asking for his opinion for the sake of it. Since the time they came to the Arian, they didn't bother caring about his opinion or insight.

He is walking on egg-shells since he entered Sam's city. He has a feeling that their sneaking in is not exactly successful and they are about to receive a perfect slap anytime soon. It is his intuition told him.

But these guys didn't bother listening to him. These four people are taking pleasure in defying his every word as it is impossible to do so in the thunder god temple.

"Do whatever you seem fit. I am only here to give you insights about Sam's techniques in battle, the rest of it is your call." The leader seemed to be quite satisfied as the answer fed his ego.

As the order came, they started munching on the food.

By the time they finished their meal, they unknowingly felt dizzy and by the time they came to sense, they are in a dark room and there are restraints placed on their hands and legs as they were tied up to chairs.

"Who is it? Why am I here? Someone comes out and releases me."

"Who has guts to restrain us like this?"

"We seemed to have been drugged. Damn it, I will smash the restaurant into pieces when I get out of here." All three of them are spouting curses as soon as they opened their eyes.

At this moment, Arthur is the only one who is staying calm. Because he knew who could have caught them.

"Welcome, My dear guests from Thundergod temple. How is your stay for the past two days in my city?" Sam came out with a smile on his face.

The lights were turned on and at this moment, he could see sitting on his bone throne.

There is a new addition to it and that is the edge of the whole chair's backrest and the arms rests are covered with the Blood iron coating. This is made from Oscar's blood he collected before.

The three people are completely dumbfounded by his arrival. They didn't expect that Sam would catch them so easily. After all, the city is vast and there are many people coming in and out. It is a pity that they don't know every person in the city is Sam's employee now.

"Isn't it rather rude to not answer a question?" Sam said in a cold voice. Then only they came to their senses.

Sam then looked at Arthur and said. "Its good to see you again. I didn't think we would meet so soon."

"What does it take for you to leave us?" Arthur came to the point directly.

"Well, is there any reason for me to leave you guys alive? After all, I do know why you guys came here and I think I have enough reason to kill you."

"All four of them gulped at his words."

"Do you know, who we are? Do you think you can escape scot-free after killing us?" One of the three said these words.

"Hahahahaha…"

But Sam only laughed but within a second, a metal card flew over and slit that person's throat.

A Grand realm cultivator was killed just like that. All it took was capturing them with an anesthetic drug and sealing their cultivation and throwing a metallic card at that person's throat.

"Does that answer your question?"

Sam said rather sarcastically.

The remaining two who are about to hurl out some threats immediately gulped and swallowed their words.

"Sam, I have some information about your friends," Arthur said these words in order to escape this ordeal.

Sam smiled and asked.

"So, what?"

"Just leave us and you can get that info."

"We can talk about that in fifteen days," Sam replied and left the place without even caring for their reply.

It simply means they have to stay here until then. Arthur was confused that Sam is unconcerned and why he wanted fifteen days to discuss just this. After fifteen days, the information would be almost useless.

By now, the teams of the remaining powers are already preparing to make their moves and their main targets are Watt, Jack, and Philip. Their information source said that Hawk is not that close with Sam.

But not everyone is willing to be the first bird. After all, they are not going to catch worms to be excited about being an early bird. They want to wait and see and particularly two powers are extremely unwilling to move first.

The lightning spear sect though is too eager. They don't want to delay the process as they are in an extreme rivalry with the Thunder God temple, so they sent their people first and four of them at that.

At this exact moment, the Lightning spear sect disciples entered Arian.

Author's note:: read the author's thought. An announcement regarding the chapter updates