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

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.