Against the Gods - Volume 10 - Snow Song Flame God

by Mars Gravity

  It was at this time that he suddenly sensed profound aura fluctuations from his Sound Transmission Jade.

  Yun Che came to a halt abruptly.

  Such ordinary sound transmissions via Sound Transmission Jade were not possible to cross through star realms.

  The only one in the Darkya Realm with his sound transmission imprint… was the Black Feather Merchant Guild!

  Yun Che frowned as he slowly took out the Sound Transmission Jade. The voice in his Sound Transmission Jade, however, didn’t belong to that Mr. Ji but to a woman.

  “Sir Ling Yun, I am Ji Ruyan from the Black Feather Merchant Guild. I would like to see you about a matter. In four hours, I’ll be quietly waiting for Sir Ling Yun all alone east of Darkya City. I request Sir Ling Yun to be sure to give me face and keep this appointment… Sir Ling Yun, please believe my words. Ruyan is your friend and is absolutely not an enemy of yours. Ruyan has also never told the Black Soul Divine Sect anything related to you.”

  After the voice, the information about a location was transmitted to him, too.

  Ji Ruyan!?

  Yun Che, “…”

  Yun Che’s first reaction to it was—she was leading him to a trap.

  But if it was really a trap, then it was absurdly obvious. Furthermore, why would Ji Ruyan determine that he was still in Darkya City? Didn’t the Black Feather Merchant Guild inform Black Soul Divine Sect that he had fled from Darkya City?

  Thinking back to yesterday night, he had received a sound transmission twice from Ji Ruyan at the trade fair and the people of Black Soul Divine Sect believed him to be someone from a place called “Pure Moon Realm.” Unexpectedly, no one mentioned a thing about the Flame God Realm. He once again felt that the relationship between Black Soul Divine Sect and the Black Feather Merchant Guild was not as simple as it seemed on the surface.

  However, beside it being a conspiracy against him, Yun Che couldn’t think of any other reason for Ji Ruyan to want to meet him.

  “Alright! Let’s see what exactly you have up your sleeve!” Yun Che mumbled to himself.

  As someone who had Moon Splitting Cascade, he had no fear of being conspired against.

  Yun Che changed the direction he was moving in and headed straight to the east of the city.

  It was gradually nearing nighttime and at some point in time later, it had already gotten so dark that one couldn’t even see the five fingers of their hand.

  As opposed to the shine and glitter from ice in the Snow Song Realm, the night in the Darkya Realm was particularly dark.

  The place where Ji Ruyan had arranged to meet was still within the territory of Darkya City but it was an extremely wide and abandoned piece of land. On the thousands of meters long dried-up land, there were only a few cottages that were in a dilapidated state. Besides that, there was nothing else to see other than the spacious and empty land that was covered in withered grass and could be seen clearly and completely, at a glance.

  There was nowhere to hide oneself, let alone be good enough for a sinister person to scheme something.

  Yun Che arrived at the place at an earlier time and then, made a few rounds while invisible. Much less an unusual aura, he couldn’t even catch sight of a passerby.

  However, Yun Che didn’t lower his guard and stayed invisible. When it was less than fifteen minutes until the time of appointment, he sensed an aura of the Divine Soul Realm speedily getting closer to the place. Yun Che raised his head to see a lithe and graceful white figure high in the sky that was flying over from the west.

  It was only one person.

  Ji Ruyan was dressed simply in a plain and long white skirt. She had a calm expression, which was at least completely different from how she had deliberately tried to appear charming last night.

  She very lightly landed before Yun Che but the moment her feet came into contact with the ground, she purposely made them produce a pretty heavy landing sound.

  Yun Che didn’t make himself visible and continued to coldly look at her.

  Ji Ruyan looked around. Then, she just silently stood in wait. Time quickly passed in the dark and silent night but there was no sign of any auras approaching from the distance the whole time.

  “Sir Ling Yun, Ruyan knows that you’re here. I ask you to show yourself.”

  Suddenly, Ji Ruyan said in a soft tone.

  Yun Che didn’t respond to her in the least.

  “Sir Ling Yun, I ask you to believe Ruyan. Ruyan will absolutely not hurt you, nor is there any reason to do so. Ruyan requested for this sudden appointment today to ask for a favor and hope that Sir Ling Yun helps Ruyan with it.”

  Her voice contained sincerity and even a sense of entreatment and loneliness. It didn’t sound like she was faking it to Yun Che.

  Yun Che raised his brows as he finally spoke, “I’m behind you!”

  He undid his invisibility as he spoke.

  Ji Ruyan suddenly turned around. Seeing the ice-cold face of Yun Che, an expression of pleasant surprise surfaced on her face, “Sir Ling Yun…”

  “How did you know that I was here?” Yun Che asked.

  “Intuition,” Ji Ruyan replied with a faint smile. “A woman’s intuition is always very accurate.”

  “Intuition?” Yun Che said with a cold smile, “Then use that intuition of yours to guess whether you can go back alive tonight!”

  Yun Che’s voice resounded abruptly as his figure shot forth. Taking advantage of the fact that he was right in front of Ji Ruyan, he instantly shaped his palm into a terrifying eagle hook and mercilessly grabbed onto her slender, snow-white neck. The abrupt release of his enormous power almost broke her neck.

  The cultivation level of Ji Ruyan’s profound strength was the same as Yun Che but the difference between their strengths was worlds apart. In an instant, her face turned deathly pale due to experiencing intense suffocation and pain but she didn’t show any signs of trying to struggle out of her predicament.

  Her eyes were filled with pain but there was no trace of panic or confusion in them. She didn’t beg for her life either and instead said in a light voice, “It’s certainly true that… even death would be too good for… Ruyan… It’d be also nice to… die by… your hands...”

  With that, she lightly closed her eyes.

  “...” Yun Che clearly perceived a feeling of being set free from Ji Ruyan’s voice.

  Chapter 1083: Ji Ruyans Request

  Yun Che slowly freed her neck from his hold.

  Ji Ruyan sat paralyzed on the ground as she placed her hands on her neck and coughed dryly. Yun Che turned away from her and said in a cold voice, “I personally saw the sorrowful plight of the wood spirits and also witnessed how they suffered a tragic fate… At the place they had cautiously kept themselves isolated in fear of others, all the wood spirits, regardless of their sex or age, were slaughtered bloodily…”

  “They were absolutely not guilty of some unpardonable evil and were instead so pure and virtuous that anyone would feel their heart and soul purified just by coming in contact with them for a short while… However, they ended up dying at the hands of the Black Soul Divine Sect! Moreover, no one knows how many wood spirits and other creatures met such a misfortune due to it in the past. Your Black Feather Merchant Guild might not have directly participated in those wicked acts but you can’t deny that you did aid and abet an evildoer… It’s certainly true that even death would be too good for you!”

  “...” The feeling of pain gradually vanished but Ji Ruyan was still sitting paralyzed on the ground. Her lips had lost their color and she panted heavily without saying anything in response.

  “I’ve come back to the Darkya City to kill people! Those from the Black Soul Divine Sect and the Black Feather Merchant Guild… So you’re naturally one of my targets!”

  Ji Ruyan, “…”

  “I won’t kill you for now, as I want to hear the reason for you coming to meet me alone. It’d be in your best interest to give me a reasonable answer, otherwise I’ll first us
e your blood to commemorate the departed souls of those wood spirits!” Yun Che’s ice-cold voice contained an even chillier killing intent.

  Ji Ruyan slowly raised her head and said in a light tone, “Sir… do you truly want to kill the people of Black Soul Divine Sect? Because they hunt and kill wood spirits?”

  “They all deserve to die!” Yun Che said, each and every word expressed the gloominess in his heart.

  Feeling Yun Che’s gloomy and bone-penetrating killing intent from so close, it wasn’t fear that appeared on Ji Ruyan’s face but an expression of joy, “In that case, Ruyan has really made the right bet.”

  She got up on her feet as she gave him a glance with faint fluctuations in her eyes, “Sir Ling Yun, I ask you… to save the Black Feather Merchant Guild.”

  “???” Yun Che knitted his brows. “Save the Black Feather Merchant Guild? What kind of joke is that?”

  “You are a righteous person. Since you hate the Black Soul Divine Sect so much, it’s only natural that you’d definitely loathe the Black Feather Merchant Guild with a passion, which abeted the evildoer, but the real situation is absolutely not as it seems.”

  Ji Ruyan lightly bit on her lip as sadness appeared within the fluctuations in her eyes. “The prosperity and decline of a merchant guild is often determined in a night’s time. It’s far more difficult for a merchant guild to maintain its prosperity for a long time than a dynasty or a sect. My Black Feather Merchant Guild has existed for fifty thousand years, a period even longer than any sect in the Darkya Realm. Even if we take the entire God Realm into consideration, there are very few merchant guilds that have flourished and prospered for so many years. When it comes to the lower star realms, there are so few such merchant guilds that they can be counted on one’s fingers.”

  “As an establishment with such a solid history and abundant accumulation, the foundation of Black Feather Merchant Guild is already deep-rooted and there’s no need to say much about the great wealth and prestige it possesses… But, have you ever given a thought to why would such a merchant guild would take the risk of thoroughly destroying its reputation and carrying out filthy underground trade? To earn more? The profit is so insignificant that there’s no need to do something of that sort.”

  “...” It was certainly true that Yun Che had doubted the same thing several times after knowing about the standing of the Black Feather Merchant Guild and seeing its extensiveness. He said with a cold look in his eyes, “You’re not going to tell me that you have been forced by the Black Soul Divine Sect into committing such deeds, right?”

  “It’s worse than that,” Ji Ruyan said, “Earlier, the Black Feather Merchant Guild and the Black Soul Divine Sect had existed in harmony with each other as the two major powers in the Darkya Realm. Then, a thousand years ago, the Black Soul Divine Sect caused trouble for us all of a sudden. They held my father hostage, who was still a child at the time and forced my grandfather to give his consent to the Black Soul Divine Sect to integrate their filthy underground merchant guild with the Black Feather Merchant Guild.”

  Yun Che, “…”

  “My grandfather had nine children in total but except for my father, everyone else died at an early age. As such, grandfather had no choice but to agree in the end… Not long afterwards, the Black Feather Merchant Guild sold Wood Spirit Orbs for the first time and it was only then that my father was released by them. Once they had gotten dirt on the Black Feather Merchant Guild, we were within the firm grasp of the Black Soul Divine Sect and were completely forced into a dark quagmire since then. Every time we were forced to carry out an underground trade, the Black Soul Divine Sect would use a Profound Imagery Stone to leave behind proof of the trade… consequently, forcing the Black Feather Merchant Guild to fall deeper and deeper.”

  “Thenceforth, the Black Feather Merchant Guild had no way out but to be controlled by the Black Soul Divine Sect. Otherwise, once it makes the proof of the underground trade public, things would go south in no time. Not only each and every thing that is possessed by the Black Feather Merchant Guild would be destroyed in a day, it would also fall into a miserable situation where the common people would condemn and cast aside even those of its later generation.”

  “The Black Soul Divine Sect absolutely didn’t do so just to control our Black Feather Merchant Guild. It wants the whole Darkya Realm to be in its complete control. After all, every time a filthy and evil underground trade was done, the customers would also end up having the Black Soul Divine Sect get dirt on them, similar to the Black Feather Merchant Guild! Our Merchant Guild is required to provide extremely detailed information about all the customers and the things they want to purchase, to the Black Soul Divine Sect and the whole trading process is even secretly recorded by a Profound Imagery Stone…”

  “Heh, they actually dare to play with such a big fire? Aren’t they afraid of themselves getting burned down first?” Yun Che asked in disdain.

  “Of course, they won’t… because its not them who carry out the underground trade. It’s our Black Feather Merchant Guild that has always been in charge of it. If something were to really happen, the Black Feather Merchant Guild would be destroyed in a day but it definitely wouldn’t hurt the Black Soul Divine Sect in any way.”

  Ji Ruyan let out a light sigh, “Some time after that, grandfather constantly felt guilty towards our forefathers and eventually died in depression. When my father inherited the Black Feather Merchant Guild, the only thing he could do was to be as careful as possible in order to not let the masses know about the dirty side of the Black Feather Merchant Guild. For this reason, he didn’t hesitate to personally manage the underground merchant guild. All the customers, especially the new ones, were received and checked on by him, so as to not allow the room for the slightest bit of negligence.

  “That means the ‘Mister Ji’ whom I met that day was in fact your father… and he is the current Guild Master of the Black Feather Merchant Guild?” Yun Che asked. He really never thought of such a possibility. It was impossible for anyone to imagine that the power holder of such an enormous merchant guild would actually take the initiative to “receive customers” himself.

  It was no wonder that the guild master showed an extremely cold and disgusted look when he straightway brought up the matter of wanting to purchase a “Wood Spirit Orb”… The change in his attitude later also seemed to be too unnatural.

  “That’s right, he was none other than my father.” Ji Ruyan nodded her head. Looking at the flicker of surprise flash through Yun Che’s eyes, she gave a pained laugh, “As the matter is related to the reputation and existence of the Black Feather Merchant Guild, father could only deal with it himself. If he were to hand over the responsibility to someone else, there’s no way he would ever feel at ease.”

  “However, I ask you to not be worried. We have given fake and baseless information about you to the Black Soul Divine Sect. We informed the sect that you’ve come from the far-off Pure Moon Realm. Even if they go over to investigate on you, they would need a very long time to do so. It’s only my father and I who know about your true background. Sir, you must be wondering how we were able to so easily deceive the Black Soul Divine Sect… Actually, the most important objective of the Black Soul Divine Sect is to control all the major sects in the Darkya Realm. They have never been too concerned about the people from other realms, unless they have a special identity. In addition… you used the black feather stone of Sect Master Huo of the Flame God Realm, whose identity was forged in the first place… and was also the sole person before you who took the risk of faking himself to be someone of lesser identity. The place he was pretending to be from was—the Pure Moon Realm.”

  “...” Yun Che narrowed his eyes. Listening up to here, he finally understood some things. He said with a barely distinguishable smile, “So that’s how it is. That sure dispelled my doubts. Last night, I was feeling odd when you looked me in the eye and contacted me with sound transmission. If I include the fact that you just talk
ed about saving your Black Feather Merchant Guild into consideration… I can come to the conclusion that it’s actually not my but the Flame God Realm’s power that you want to borrow to assist your Black Feather Merchant Guild in breaking out of this quagmire, huh.”

  “Exactly!” Ji Ruyan responded in an excited voice. “While carefully managing the underground merchant guild, my father has been painstakingly looking for a way to free ourselves the whole time. The search finally stopped several hundred years ago… when father met Sect Master Huo Rulie, who was in urgent need of Wood Spirit Orbs.”

  “It was normal for an expert of a middle star realm to come looking for something in the Darkya Realm but a person of a high standing would consider it beneath themselves to come down to a lower realm personally. It’s especially impossible if they are visiting to look for a forbidden thing such as Wood Spirit Orb. But Huo Rulie personally came in search of Wood Spirit Orbs, despite being a supreme existence of the Flame God Realm. It was the first time my father was meeting him but his effort to go through so much to obtain Wood Spirit Orbs manifested his true nature.”

  “Having easily seen through Sect Master Huo’s real identity, an idea came to my father’s mind. He forged a ‘customer’ origin and identity for the first time for his use and also sold him the best Wood Spirit Orb in the guild’s possession at the time. Later, father would purposely reserve a Wood Spirit Orb periodically, which he immediately provided to Sect Master Huo whenever he came to get one.”

  “Your father wanted Sect Master Huo to owe him a favor?” Yun Che at once came to realization.

  “Precisely so.” Ji Ruyan nodded, “In my father’s words, Sect Master Huo is upright and unyielding in nature, he can clearly differentiate between grudges and favors and hasn’t strayed from the right path while acting according to his principles. Such a person would certainly return all the grudges and favors and would absolutely not be willing to owe someone a favor. Father has put in all of his effort these past years to accumulate enough favor with Sect Master Huo, so that once a suitable opportunity arrived, he could ask Sect Master Huo’s assistance to get the Black Feather Merchant Guild free from the control of the Black Soul Divine Sect… Although the sect holds supreme authority in the Darkya Realm, to an existence of Flame God Realm level, it would be as easy as turning over one’s palm to do so.”