“Trafficker?” Duan Ling Tian was stunned.
With his keen sense of hearing, he heard the voice from the street ahead. It was getting closer and closer followed by hurried footsteps.
“Sir! That’s him! He kidnapped my niece!” At that moment, Duan Ling Tian heard a hoarse voice yelling from behind. The hoarse voice was horrible like a duck that would not stop quacking.
“Are… you with them?” Duan Ling Tian asked the little girl while looking at her with a kind smile.
Now, he realized that he was facing a badger game he had heard about. However, he was not worried at all. Instead, he gave his attention to the little girl.
“They… They hit me… They hit me when I don’t listen to them…” The little girl looked at Duan Ling Tian with her big, innocent and watery eyes while tears rolled from them. At the same time, she pulled up her torn sleeves to show him her skinny arms.
A glance was enough to make the smile on Duan Ling Tian’s face freeze. His eyes looked like they were going to spit fire.
“Who are they? Do you know them?” However, he suppressed his rage and asked as softly as he could so that he would not frighten the little girl. Now, he was almost sure that she was just an innocent girl.
The girl was only five or six. What did she even know?
“They took me away… My mother’s gone… My father’s gone… My grandfather’s gone…” The little girl whimpered while wiping her tears away. Her tears flowed all over her dirty face, making her look like a filthy little kitten.
Duan Ling Tian confirmed that the little girl had been deceived by them.
Those bastards had made her part of their badger game.
“Sir, it’s him! See, he’s making my daughter sob like this.”
“Sir, I would recognize him even if he’s burnt to ashes… It’s him who kidnapped my niece. My niece is only six. How are my brother and sister-in-law going to live knowing she’s been kidnapped?” The two voices cried out one after another.
Duan Ling Tian noticed that the little girl was like a bird being startled by the mere twang of a bowstring as she gripped his thigh again while she began to shudder. It was hard to imagine what she had gone through to be this terrified as soon as she heard their voices.
“I’m here. Nobody will hurt you again.” He picked her up into his embrace. At the same, he began to check who was blocking him in front and behind. The person in front of him was a middle-aged man in blue while a Mound Hill City guard stood next to him.
Meanwhile, a squat, ugly, middle-aged man was behind him, and there was a Mound Hill City guard next to him too.
“Brat, how dare you kidnap my daughter?! I have a city guard with me. I can’t wait to see what they’re going to do with you!” The middle-aged man in blue shouted at Duan Ling Tian while staring at him with those ugly, slanted eyes.
“Sir, please help me… My brother and sister-in-law only have one child,” pleaded the short and ugly middle-aged man to the Mound Hill City guard next to him.
“It’s very late now. It’s not nice for us to disturb our comrades looking after the prison. The both of you should see if you can sort this out privately. If he’s unwilling to do it, we’ll put him behind bars,” one of the Mound Hill City guards said.
“Trafficker, it’s your lucky day! If not for us not wanting to disturb our comrades guarding the prison, you’ll be stuck behind bars forever!” The other Mound Hill City guard said.
The little girl leaned on Duan Ling Tian’s shoulders and said to him in her shaky voice, “Brother… They’re fake… They’re in this together… They’re bad people. They’re all bad people.”
In fact, when the first person who dressed as a Mound Hill City guard spoke, Duan Ling Tian already knew he was an imposter. Although he had only been to Mound Hill City for a short time, he heard that Mound Hill City was strict with their guards, so it was impossible that they had such scums working for them.
Although the little girl’s voice was soft, it was loud in the still street. The four people surrounding Duan Ling Tian heard what she said and their expressions changed.
“Stupid girl, do you want to die?!”
The reason why they were doing this badger game was to obtain more Saint Stones; they hardly killed unless it was necessary.
It was the reason they were in Mound Hill City!
They would not be able to live there as soon as they killed someone. The City Governor’s Estate of Mound Hill City would regard them as having humiliated Mound Hill City’s power and would find them even if they had to tear the place up.
However, now that the little girl had exposed their scheme, they could no longer bother about that. They whipped weapons out one after another. Altogether, there were four Human Rank Prominent Saint Weapons.
“Since when do little bastards who aren’t even on Mortal Shedding Stage dare to kill in Mound Hill City?” Duan Ling Tian glanced at the four of them with his sharp eyes and mocked.
Just when the four of them had appeared earlier, he had already detected their cultivation base with his Divine Eye. They were merely on Innate Void Restoration Stage.
At the same time, the purple robes on Duan Ling Tian’s body fluttered with his aura of a Mortal Shedding Stage powerhouse.
“A Mortal… Mortal Shedding Stage powerhouse!”
At that moment, the four of them had a drastic change of expression when they realized that they had bitten off more than they could chew.
“Tell me! Where did all of you kidnap her from?” Duan Ling Tian glared at them. His eyes that were already ferocious looked even fiercer now as if they could pierce through them.
The four of them seemed to realize it was impossible for them to run from Duan Ling Tian, so they knelt and begged, “Sir, please spare our lives! We purchased her from someone else. We’ve no idea where she came from.”
“Please spare our lives!”
“Please spare our lives!”
…
The four of them knelt on the ground and continuously begged for mercy as they shuddered.
“Purchased her from someone else? Where’s that person now?” Duan Ling Tian demanded.
“We don’t know him… He was just passing by Mound Hill City. We’ve no idea where he came from and where he was going,” said the slanted-eyed man while shaking.
“What’s your name?” Duan Ling Tian glanced at the little girl in his embrace and asked gently.
“Sze Sze.” Perhaps because she saw how Duan Ling Tian overpowered the four of them so easily, the little girl was no longer afraid now. She looked at him in admiration with her big, watery eyes. “Brother, you’re so powerful! Can Sze Sze learn from you?”
“If Sze Sze learns from you, Sze Sze won’t have to be afraid of bad people anymore… Bad people wouldn’t dare to hit Sze Sze,” she said in all seriousness.
Duan Ling Tian clearly felt the four fellas kneeling on the ground shake subtly when they heard what the little girl said.
He lifted the little girl’s torn rags from her limbs and saw bruises all over her arms and legs. The bruises seemed fresh.
“Sze Sze, tell me… Do they hit you often?” Duan Ling Tian tried his best to suppress the rage in him as he asked softly.
“Please spare our lives, Young Miss!”
“Please spare our lives, Young Miss!”
…
At that moment, the four of them who were kneeling on the ground panicked. They completely panicked. They were all astute enough to tell there was a will to kill hidden in Duan Ling Tian’s tone.
The little girl nodded. “Sze Sze didn’t listen to them. Sze Sze didn’t want to lie. They hit Sze Sze because of that. They asked Sze Sze to lie… Sze Sze isn’t a bad kid. Sze Sze doesn’t want to lie.”
“I know you’re a good kid, Sze Sze. Sze Sze, let’s play a game. No matter what you hear later, don’t open your eyes until I tell you to, okay?” Duan Ling Tian smiled while looking at the little girl.
“Alright.” She nodded obediently and shut her eyes.
Almost the second the little girl shut her eyes, the rage that Duan Ling Tian suppressed burst out completely. He lifted his foot and released True Energy rampantly, sweeping towards the four bastards kneeling on the ground.
The four bastards did not even have the chance to beg for mercy as the lifting of Duan Ling Tian’s foot alone caused their bodies to explode while blood sprayed everywhere.
“Roar!!”
…
Not long after Duan Ling Tian killed the four bastards, a beastly roar came from the street ahead. The sound was getting closer and closer and it soon arrived at the street across Duan Ling Tian.
“Who is that?! Who dares to kill in Mound Hill City?!” Soon, a young man in armor who stood on a Wild Beast appeared not far from Duan Ling Tian majestically. Eight people in armor followed closely behind him.
Duan Ling Tian recognized that those were Mound Hill City guards in just one glance.
“I heard that the five Mount Hill City guard captains are all Beastriders. I wonder which one of them are you?” Duan Ling Tian looked at the young man standing on the Wild Beast and asked.
“Hong Yu!” The young man standing on the Wild Beast looked straight into Duan Ling Tian’s eyes and asked coldly, “Who are you then? Why did you kill in Mound Hill City? Don’t you know the rules here?”
“Captain, four men have died… Two of them wear our city guards’ armor. I’ve verified them. The armor was forged.” Quickly, a guard reported to Hong Fu after checking the scene.
“There’s a death penalty for those who forge city guards’ armor!” Hong Yu glared coldly at Duan Ling Tian. “How are you going to explain about the other two?”
“Captain Hong, is this Wild Beast that you tamed, the Bloody-eyed Jackal?” Duan Ling Tian had his eyes locked on the Wild Beast under Hong Yu’s feet. It was completely black with red eyes and looked very similar to a jackal. “I heard that the Bloody-eyed Jackal has a special sensing ability when it comes to the smell of blood. It can detect blood even if it’s far away. I’ve finally witnessed its ability today. It sure lives up to its fame.”
Just when Hong Yu’s face turned solemn and seemed a little impatient, Duan Ling Tian took out the token given by the Heavenly Harm Guardian and tossed it to him. “I’m one of you guys.”
Hong Yu grabbed the token and scrutinized it closely. He could not help but exclaim out loud, “The Latent Dragon Camp!”
Latent Dragon Camp!
As Hong Yu exclaimed, the eight city guards looked at Duan Ling Tian in admiration.
Everyone in Mound City Hill knew about the Latent Dragon Camp.
It was common knowledge that no matter how weak a person was, as long as he came out of the Latent Dragon Camp, he was a remarkable person to them.
“Although you’re from Latent Dragon Camp, the prohibition to kill within Mound Hill City’s an order from Master City Governor. The two men that you killed among these four who disguised as city guards deserve to die! But you’ll have to give me a reasonable explanation for the other two that you’ve killed.” Hong Yu’s expression eased a little after Duan Ling Tian handed his token over.