Lady Diyin, the Sound Sword Sect Master, and Shou Clan Leader all wore frowns upon their faces. Their subordinates were sending in reports with slurred words. The forest was dense and they could not see clearly what was going on. They were using their Spirit Senses to observe the situation, but Spirit Sense was best at observing the motion of energy. None of these three had any special methods to utilize their Spirit Sense, so they could only guess about the situation. Upon receiving the reports, Lady Diyin and the Swordsman frowned. They’d seen their enemy use such abilities before, but not to this extent. What made it worse was that the trees around them also began releasing the pink gas. This whole time, one of their adjutants behind them had been relaying messages with those back at the Shou Clan and they realized that it wasn’t just this area they were in, the entire forest around the city had started to turn pink.

The Swordsman acted fast and his blade cut through the air. There was a swish in the air and all the trees around them were toppled. Lady Diyin immediately realized what he was doing and she relayed orders to their reserve troops. The hundreds of rank fives started attacking the land around them and in just a few minutes a massive clearing had formed.

By the time Sage had arrived there was an area hundreds of yards wide completely scoured clean of all vegetation. The ground was uneven and torn up, the result of them not even leaving any roots behind. Those of the Alliance were sweating from the exertion, focused upon this demolition until one of their number shouted in surprise.

“They’re here!”

Across from them, the trees at the edge of the clearing seemed to part, the pink gas drifted away, forming a clear archway. Out of that clear space, many figures in black cloaks appeared. They walked out into the clearing and slowly spread out. At first, the Alliance was quite intimidated to see these mysterious figures that seemed to control the forest, but then as they spread out, they suddenly realized the disparity in numbers.

Three rank sixes and hundreds of rank fives. They counted quickly and their foes only seemed to number fifty.

“Is that it? Half a hundred of them?”

“Hey, why are you all wearing hoods? Do you not want us to see how scared you are?”

“Don’t be rude. They’re probably just too ugly and tired of receiving insults!”

“Is that one a lady? Hey girly, you have a nice figure. Don’t you worry, this daddy will still show you a good time even if you don’t want to take your hood off.”

“You clod, that’s not what a lady likes to hear. You should come over to me, missy. You can take off your hood with me and I’ll still show you a good time!”

The hundreds of rank fives already started jeering and throwing insults at Sage’s side. Their commanders didn’t say anything to stop them so they took it as encouragement to continue. Many of these people were used to throwing their weight around, and most of them were hundreds of years old, they were all old hands at harassing and looking down on others with arrogance. The three Nascent Soul leaders had already sent word to the city and there was only one final thing they needed to know.

The woman with her face covered in piercings, the Shou Clan Leader, hopped off her mount and stepped forward. She flirtatiously smiled at the dark cloaked enemies, waving her hand in front of her chest to draw attention to the cleavage of her large bust. She even leaned forward to help the enemies get a better view before speaking, “Oh dearie. So many strong men and women. It is such a shame that you are all hiding your faces, I really wish I could see how handsome and beautiful you were. I’ve heard so much about the wondrous feats of Lang Sheng, where is he? Please, can I see your face?”

One of the black cloaked figures took a step forward and reached up with both hands, pulling down the cloak from their head. At that moment, Lady Diyin and the Swordsman both narrowed their eyes. That was because this person looked exactly like the Lang Sheng they’d met before. His features weren’t too handsome, nor were they ugly, seeming like any other average person of this world, with the exception of his brilliant golden eyes. The two of them were shocked. Did this fellow actually fall for the Shou Clan Leader’s seduction? They looked at the freakish woman once again and were flabbergasted. Was Lang Sheng also a freak?

Really, she’s not all that bad. These easterners really seem to completely abhor anyone with facial scars, burns, or even freckles.

She was certainly covered in piercings, but she was far from doing an impression of a certain hell raiser. He actually found this woman quite odd. In his experience, those with attractive faces would only have a couple piercings, somewhat like accessorizing for the face. Those with such extreme amounts of piercings on the face were usually trying to draw attention that their ordinary looks couldn’t. Yet, here was this beautiful lady that had covered her face in metal… how extremely unusual.

None of this actually had to do with why he’d uncovered his face. He pulled down his hood because he felt like these three were still up to something. Mainly because he’d already figured out that there were more than three important figures in the Artful Life Alliance. He wanted to draw them all out. After he pulled down his hood, the others on his side also pulled down theirs. In case they might think he was using a double, he wanted to assure the enemy of his identity. He only wondered if they would think too much into it and start thinking all of their faces were fakes and this group was all a trick. Hopefully this display of immediately revealing himself would lull them into thinking he was finally ready for a straightforward confrontation.

Unfortunately, his foes were still in a completely different train of thought. This surprising turn of events had caused even the serious Lady Diyin and the Swordsman with a one track mind to start gossiping with each other. They were sending voice transmissions back and forth asking if either of them knew that Lang Sheng was such a freak before this. They were even wondering if they should have just sent the Shou Clan Leader to seduce him before joining in all the hostilities. They should have just killed Hei Bai themselves and maybe they could have married this guy into the Shou Clan.

“What a shame.”

Lady Diyin and the Sound Sword Sect Master exclaimed in unison. While the Shou Clan Leader put a hand modestly over her mouth. She was blushing slightly and then lowered her head, peering out from under her heavily pierced eyebrows to give Sage a very demure look, “Oh my, Brother Lang sure is exotic. Did you come all this way to visit me? This Little Sister is so happy to see you. Why don’t we put away all these silly weapons and I can show you around Western Peace City.”

“I decline.”

The flat look on Sage’s face utterly shattered the delusional thoughts of Lady Diyin and the Sound Sword Sect Master. They both shared a look and Lady Diyin triggered a Messaging Jade, “He’s here.”