Chapter 149: You Want to Challenge Me?

"It is Ding Zhi, the Guardian of the City!"

Upon seeing the group of warriors in golden armor approaching neatly from ahead, Wu Yan was the first to cry out. He had lived in Thunder City for far too long; even with those warriors clad in golden armor, he could recognize them at a single glance.

Wu Bozhong's expression also shifted slightly, and he immediately instructed his subordinates to maintain full defensive readiness.

Su Ye was unaware of the opponents' strength, so he asked in a deep voice, "What is their cultivation level? Can we handle them?"

Wu Bozhong thought for a moment, then spoke with measured deliberation: "In Thunder City, quite a few warriors live here, and their cultivation levels vary. They are roughly divided into two factions. One faction consists mainly of outsiders who covet the treasures of Thunder City and still dream of leaving, much like that old hag Luo Gui.

"The other faction is the stubborn faction. They have lived in Thunder City for decades and are generally old men. They no longer wish to leave this place, nor do they want other warriors to leave, because once someone leaves, it will bring even greater danger. They are led mainly by Ding Zhi and Ding Ke, and their ultimate leader is an old man over a hundred years old named Ding Tengfei, who is quite terrifying!"

Su Ye narrowed his eyes and spotted two leading elders among the squad of golden-armored warriors, who presumably were Ding Zhi and Ding Ke, though Ding Tengfei, the actual leader, was nowhere to be seen.

Clearly, Jiang Ziyang and Ouyang Yunfeng already knew them, and neither showed any overly radical behavior on the surface.

Jiang Ziyang even called out loudly from afar, "Hahaha, so it is Brother Ding Zhi and Brother Ding Ke! My men thought some unprincipled warriors were approaching. Haha, all of you, lower your weapons and do not point them at our allies. Haha."

Although he spoke this way, all the warriors could tell that it was merely surface courtesy.

In this Thunder City, who would truly believe in momentary allies? Therefore, these warriors only slightly lowered their weapons rather than truly stowing them away, remaining on high alert.

The warriors led by Ding Zhi numbered nearly two hundred, and they stopped at a distance of a hundred meters. Although facing the top of the city wall, there were many open gates along the wall, making it impossible to use this position for defense.

Ding Zhi's aged face was covered in liver spots. He let out two cold, dry chuckles and said in a deep voice, "Haha, Brother Ziyang, it seems you have encountered a great stroke of fortune! Every single one of you has acquired your own weapon. Hmm, and those weapons look quite decent, too!"

Jiang Ziyang chuckled, "Oh, mere scraps of copper and iron, how could they compare to your suits of golden armor? Su Ye opened the city gate to let you in so you could obtain your golden armor; you should properly thank him for that! Am I right?"

"That goes without saying. We have come precisely to thank him properly." Ding Zhi did not yet know who Su Ye was, and after scanning the crowd several times without being able to identify him, he had no choice but to call out, "Which one of you is the benefactor of our city guardians? I have a set of golden armor here to present to you. Come and claim it."

Su Ye frowned. The other party wanted to gift him a set of golden armor? Was this an attempt to lure him over?

Before he could speak, Ouyang Yunfeng interrupted bluntly, "Fellow city guardians, I have always been a straightforward person. You lot coming over in full armor like this surely harbor malicious intentions, don't you? We have now discovered a treasury of weapons. To avoid damaging our harmonious relations, I advise you to retreat for now! Feel free to continue searching for other treasuries, and we will not enter your restricted patrol zone."

These few words carried a distinct smell of gunpowder, completely unlike the old-fox style of Jiang Ziyang.

"Hahaha, Young Alliance Leader certainly knows how to joke! Since you have discovered the weapon treasury, each of you may simply take a piece. We are merely coming to pick up some leftovers. Saying things like that harms the harmony! We are all allied brothers—surely it won't be a case where you eat the meat while we don't even get a sip of soup?" Ding Zhi chuckled again.

He did not seem anxious at all. With a grand wave of his hand toward the group of warriors behind him, he spoke as if introducing family treasures: "Look, we just recently acquired a treasury ourselves, and now we can exchange it with you. Hurry on over! That side is full of armor! As for the weapons you have over there, just leave them to us!"

"In your dreams—" Ouyang Yunfeng roared angrily.

The atmosphere between the two sides instantly plunged into a state of hair-trigger tension.

Jiang Liuying clenched her teeth in anger and said, "These profit-seeking scoundrels want to come and snatch our things, yet they still put on such a hypocritical, righteous front."

On the opposite side, Ding Ke, who had remained silent until now, let out two cold laughs and shouted, "I wonder which one of you is Su Ye? Thanks to you for opening the city gate, and I've also heard that you are even fearless in the face of the 'Insect King's Sharpening Blades.' It has been a long time since I last encountered such an extraordinary person. Since we have met by rare chance today, why don't we compare whose abilities are greater?"

Su Ye was slightly startled. Was this sentence meant as a challenge to him?

Moreover, why deliberately mention the "Insect King's Sharpening Blades"? Calculated according to the three-day cycle of every month, the third day was about to pass. Once sunset arrived, even killing someone would not trigger the wrath of the Insect King. Why couldn't the other party wait another two or three hours, and instead insist on appearing precisely at this moment?

Were they truly this obsessed and fanatical about the "Insect King's Sharpening Blades"? Such people, one would think, could only be sorcerers of the insect cult.

Su Ye swept his gaze behind Ding Ke and suddenly discovered that among that group of warriors, there were actually insect sorcerers present.

Thinking he might have seen wrong, Su Ye looked closely again and whispered to Jiang Liuying, "Look at the last row, the one standing right in the middle. Doesn't he look like Miao Lu?"

Jiang Liuying was very familiar with Miao Lu. Earlier, when she was at the Fotianding settlement watching two shirtless warriors duel, Miao Lu had been one of them. Back then, that fellow had tried to prevent her and Su Ye from leaving, possessing an extremely stubborn personality—though she had indeed taught Miao Lu a lesson at the time.

"It's him. Why would the insect sorcerers of Fotianding be among the city guardians' ranks?" Jiang Liuying was also stunned.

The two of them were whispering privately, and the others were unaware of it.

Especially Ding Ke in the distance; having waited for so long without seeing Su Ye step forward, nor receiving any response, he felt deeply humiliated and clenched his fists in anger.

Meanwhile, the rest of the guardian warriors continued searching for Su Ye's figure.

"Su Ye, could it be that you dare not accept the challenge? All your grand talk about being able to withstand the 'Insect King's Sharpening Blades'—was it just empty boasting?" Ding Ke shouted sternly once more.

Right at that moment, Su Ye leaped up from the top of the city wall, landing squarely on the edge, and shouted in a ringing voice, "Are you trying to challenge me?"

The group of city guardians immediately turned their eyes to Su Ye. According to the rumors they had heard by hearsay, Su Ye was supposed to be a slightly slender youth, perhaps even carrying a scholarly aura.

But now, upon taking a look—what the hell!

What was this?

Su Ye actually had a majestic, oversized greatsword strapped to his back, so huge it looked as though he were carrying a small boat on his back. Moreover, such a "meritorious hero" was not standing beside Jiang Ziyang or Ouyang Yunfeng, but rather standing with a rather cocky air in the corner of the city wall.

Wasn't this motherfucker just a lackey acting as a lookout?

And a reckless, brainless blockhead of a lackey at that! Carrying such a massive sword looked exhausting enough; could this swaggering punk really be the Su Ye who resisted the wrath of the Insect King and opened the gates of Thunder City?

"You are Su Ye?" Ding Ke had never seen Su Ye before, nor had he attended any gatherings, so he truly did not recognize him.

Su Ye took a deep breath, seemingly understanding many things in this brief instant. He let out a hearty laugh and said in a clear voice, "That's right, it's me! You are in such a hurry to witness me withstand the 'Wrath of the Insect King'—could it be that you, too, are insect sorcerers?"

"You... your eyes must be blind! We have guarded this city for decades; how could we possibly be insect sorcerers? It's just that for decades, no one has ever been able to resist the Wrath of the Insect King. What gives you the right to do so? I truly wish to experience your skills for myself!" Ding Ke roared, reaching behind him to grasp a pitch-black wooden staff.

This wooden staff was quite bizarre—black and ugly, looking somewhat like a firewood stick or a walking cane that an old man had used for many years.

Boom!!

With a leap, his figure surged forward for nearly a hundred meters, directly glaring up at Su Ye atop the city wall as a powerful battle intent radiated from his body.

"Su Ye, you mustn't..." Jiang Ziyang called out.

"Don't worry—"

Knowing what Jiang Ziyang was about to say, Su Ye interrupted him with a wave of his hand. His cold eyes stared fixedly at Ding Ke down below the city wall, and he shouted in a deep voice, "Someone has been sneaking around following us all the way here—let me blast him out!"

Kill—

Su Ye suddenly let out a long howl and leaped down from the top of the city wall in a single bound. His figure cut through the air like an eagle spreading its wings, carrying an unstoppable momentum.

Ding Ke looked up from the ground with a cold smile, the aura on his body erupting as it violently formed into a swirling vortex of turbulent air. That rolling current of air instantly spun like a tornado, turning into something resembling the gaping maw of an abyss under the rotation of his black wooden staff.

His formidable cultivation level was directly exposed!

Peak of the Qi Gathering Realm, Ninth Layer!

Such a terrifying level of cultivation was undoubtedly at the very top tier here, and with an old monster like Ding Ke possessing vast battle experience, Su Ye, who was only at the sixth layer of the Qi Gathering Realm, was definitely no match for him!

The expressions of Jiang Ziyang, Ouyang Yunfeng, Wu Yan, and the others instantly turned pale, and many of them shouted for him to be careful.

Meanwhile, quite a few of the opposing guardian warriors burst into laughter. A gap of three whole layers was an irreversible chasm; this Su Ye was young and hot-headed, and today he was going to pay the price.

Wielding his black wooden staff, Ding Ke smiled coldly. The Su Ye jumping down from above was clearly relying on sheer brute force alone.

A punk like that—he could take ten of them!

"Cleaving Void Slash—"

At that moment, Su Ye roared mid-fall, yanked the strap of the sword bag across his chest with one hand, and fiercely grabbed the greatsword on his back, bringing it down in a ferocious downward chop aimed straight at Ding Ke, much like splitting Mount Hua!

Rumble!!

With a single cleaving strike, the sound shook the heavens and the earth.

The tornado whipped up by Ding Ke was shattered on the spot. Then came a cracking sound of splintering wood, followed by another massive shockwave rippling across the earth.

"Ah..." Ding Ke's wretched, aged cry tore from his throat.

Boom—

The swirling tornado was instantly blasted away by the genuine Qi radiating from Su Ye's body, and the greatsword in his hand slammed directly into Ding Ke, driving him to his knees on the ground. A mist of blood burst outward, centered around Ding Ke's battered body.

Before anyone else could react, Su Ye cleanly and decisively withdrew his greatsword and delivered a vicious, flat-bladed slap with it directly at the kneeling Ding Ke.

The movement flowed as smoothly as moving clouds and flowing water, sending Ding Ke flying dozens of meters away to crash heavily into the formation of guardian warriors, knocking down a large swath of them.

Thud—

Su Ye planted his greatsword vertically into the ground with one hand, letting it sink heavily into the earth. Gazing into the distance, he shouted sternly:

"Who's next?!"