Chapter 89: Assassination
After the bidding eting ended, Commander-in-Chief Liang Huajun imdiately ordered Zhao Han to be taken into custody.
He also ordered a full investigation into the matter.
There was no way Liang Huajun could uncover any evidence that Zhao Han had taken bribes.
Because Zhao Han had been acting on Zhang Qing’s behalf, and Zhang Qing had not yet given him any benefits.
And even if he had, nothing would have been traceable on the surface.
As long as Zhao Han was not stupid and insisted to the bitter end that Zhang Qing and the Ye Group had nothing to do with it, then in the end, it would amount to no more than a charge of dereliction of duty. There was no way they could get any major leverage on him.
That was how clashes at the upper levels worked. Even when rules were broken, they were broken without leaving obvious traces.
It was not sothing you could target just because you wanted to.
And if you handled the attack poorly, it was all too easy to be dealt with first by the very person you were trying to target.
Li Mu had originally planned to return to the surface with Zhang Chaoyang and the others.
But then Minister Song called.
He said there was an important eting and asked whether Li Mu had ti, hoping he could co over.
Since Li Mu was not far away, he headed straight to the Cultivation Arts Faculty.
The eting itself was not actually a major matter.
It was just that the paper-format version of Flowing Cloud Five Tremors had been completed.
Minister Song and the others wanted Li Mu to give it a final check.
Li Mu offered so revision suggestions, but he did not make any major changes.
Because Flowing Cloud Five Tremors did not have flaws as obvious as those in the Falling Leaf Saber Art.
And after his improvents, its power had already been raised considerably.
So Li Mu could not be bothered to overhaul it any further.
Even though in Li Mu’s hands, that martial technique had already beco Flowing Cloud Fleeting Shadow, if Flowing Cloud Fleeting Shadow were to be written out as a paper-format cultivation art, it would be at least a High-Grade Cultivation Art.
Martial Artists below the Third or Fourth Grade would not be able to handle it at all, and understanding it would be even harder.
If he wanted to output it as a paper-format cultivation art, one or two ten-thousand-word manuscripts definitely would not be enough.
That would be a major undertaking.
Li Mu could not reveal all of his trump cards at once. That would be too much like a tree standing out above the forest, and it would bring no good.
By the ti Li Mu ca out of the Cultivation Arts Faculty, it was already past nine at night.
The Abyss had grown completely dark as well.
Fewer and fewer soldiers still carried out missions at night.
Li Mu strolled along on foot, sorting through the gains he had made over the past few days and judging that by tomorrow or the day after, that Body-Fortifying Pill could be refined.
After these past few days of nonstop cultivation through Listen Close, his cultivation had already reached the bottleneck at the peak of the Third Grade Realm.
As long as he broke through to the Fourth Grade Realm and then took the Body-Fortifying Pill, his weapon’s weight should be able to rise past three thousand jin.
Should he go take on a mission and use the pressure to stimulate a breakthrough?
Just as he was thinking this, two figures appeared on the road ahead.
Li Mu’s steps slowed as well.
He swept his gaze around.
This was already far from the teleportation zone, and there was no one nearby at all.
Those two figures seed to have been waiting here specifically for him.
Li Mu stopped five ters away from them and finally got a clear look at their faces.
A man and a woman.
The man wore a wicked smile. He was dressed in a long robe, with flowing hair and a folding fan in hand.
He looked as though he were imitating so handso scholar from an ancient costu drama.
Although this world lacked literary works like Journey to the West and many related cultural legends, its broad historical trajectory was very similar to Earth’s.
It too had co through the age of feudal dynasties.
So film and television still had costu dramas.
As for the girl, she wore her hair in twin tails, one red and one blue, with an exaggerated heart-shaped sticker pasted on her face.
She chewed gum and rested a baseball bat across her shoulder.
Li Mu found it rather amusing.
The man was imitating an Eastern costu-drama character, while the girl was imitating so Western clown girl.
But the auras around them were anything but weak.
Li Mu could not see through them, but from the feel of it, they were probably around the Fifth or Sixth Grade.
When the two saw Li Mu standing there, they both began to laugh.
“You’ve offended soone you shouldn’t have.”
The robed man said it with an easy smile, as if he were rely chatting.
“Oh.”
Li Mu answered with a single calm syllable.
He reached into his ear, and with a soft pop, the Ghostface Cudgel appeared in his hand.
“Hehehe... hahahahaha, he really doesn’t seem to take you seriously at all.”
The clown girl split her mouth in an exaggerated grin and mockingly spoke to the robed man.
The robed man smiled faintly and gave what he clearly thought was a suave shrug.
Then he raised his hand and stopped wasting words.
He slashed his folding fan sharply toward Li Mu.
Three black shadows shot toward him at terrifying speed.
In the darkness, they were nearly impossible to see with the naked eye.
But once Li Mu activated Fiery Eyes and Golden Gaze, the trajectories of those three concealed weapons beca crystal clear.
Li Mu gave a soft snort.
Dragon’s Final Resonance suddenly materialized before him.
With a hundred years of comprehension, Dragon’s Final Resonance was now nothing like the simple shield it had once been.
Not only could it now form instantly with a single thought from Li Mu, its defensive power had also beco incomparable to before.
As for the rebound force from the shield exploding, Li Mu actually felt he had less need for it now.
Because with the shield held before him, it was far more useful than blasting it outward.
Unless it was a critical mont that truly required an explosion, Li Mu’s Dragon’s Final Resonance no longer exploded lightly.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The three fan-rib-shaped concealed weapons actually drove deep into the dragon shield.
The terrifying impact shook the surrounding space violently.
The places where the dragon shield was struck shattered and splintered, and the fragnts that fell to the ground instantly blasted several small pits into it.
Li Mu thought to himself that this bastard really was strong. His strength was at least at the peak of the Fifth Grade Realm.
His offensive power was frighteningly high.
“Hm?”
The robed man tilted his head slightly, sowhat surprised.
Although Zhang Kang had warned them before coming that Li Mu was extrely powerful,
and had told them to take him seriously, to make absolutely sure they crippled Li Mu and dragged him before him, or, if things truly proved impossible, to kill Li Mu on the spot,
and in any case never let Li Mu walk away unhard, the truth was that neither he nor the clown girl had taken it too seriously.
After all, no matter how one looked at him, Li Mu only seed to be at the peak of the Third Grade Realm.
The man was two major realms above Li Mu, so no matter how strong Li Mu was, how much of a problem could he really be?
“Woohoo! How embarrassing!~~”
The clown girl imdiately burst into exaggerated laughter again, watching the robed man with undisguised glee.
At once, the robed man flew into a rage and swept his folding fan again.
But Li Mu had already roughly grasped the other man’s strength, so there was no need to remain passive.
With a sudden flash of movent, he used Nine Steps of Earthwalking with a hundred years of comprehension.
His entire body blurred so quickly that it seed he had taken only two or three steps.
Yet though slow in appearance, it was swift in truth, and in the blink of an eye he had arrived before the pair.
At that mont, the robed man had only just begun his second sweep of the fan.
And Li Mu’s Ghostface Cudgel slamd straight into him head-on.
Amid a shrill ghostly howl, the robed man’s entire wrist was instantly smashed open by the Ghostface Cudgel, flesh torn and bone shattered.
The concealed weapons hidden within the fan also flew off course, grazing past Li Mu’s body.
To be fair, those concealed weapons really were powerful. They scraped Li Mu’s arm.
But Li Mu did not care.
He simply had not used Bronze Head and Iron Arms. Otherwise, not even three robed n like this would have been able to injure him.
The mont she saw this, the clown girl’s expression shifted slightly, and she lightly darted backward to the side.
This completely exceeded the robed man’s expectations.
He had never imagined Li Mu’s attack would be this terrifying. A mont’s carelessness had been enough for his hand to be smashed apart.
He was furious beyond asure, and the aura around him exploded outward.
Li Mu had already swept another blow toward his waist.
A burst of Gang Qi suddenly exploded out from the robed man’s body, surging violently in all directions.
The visible shockwave of True Qi actually blasted Li Mu backward, forcing him to slide across the ground.
The cudgel in Li Mu’s hand brushed past the robed man’s waist.
That Gang Qi was simply too terrifying. Though it could not injure Li Mu, its force was sothing he could not resist head-on.
As the Gang Qi blasted Li Mu away, the robed man slamd his intact left hand against his own chest.
Bang!
From sowhere behind him, six longswords burst forth.
Li Mu’s brows imdiately furrowed. This robed man could actually wield swords out of thin air?
But Li Mu quickly realized that at the hilt of each sword, there was a faint, nearly invisible thread of True Qi leading back behind the man.
So he was not commanding swords from thin air after all. He was controlling them like puppets on strings.
The robed man pressed his hand downward.
The six longswords ca surging at Li Mu together with a vast flood of Gang Qi.
Wherever they passed, sand and dust were swept up, and their montum was overwhelming.
Li Mu felt that Dragon’s Final Resonance would probably not be able to block those swords.
And even if it could, it would not block all of them.
So he directly kicked the long cudgel sideways, seized it with both hands, and unleashed Chaotic Strikes at the Heavenly Palace!
The Ghostface Cudgel turned into layer after layer of afterimages in front of Li Mu, whirling so densely that not a drop of water could pass through.
The incoming longswords slamd into the cudgel, which weighed over a ton, and were imdiately knocked flying far away.
Still in shock, the robed man recalled the swords and sent them circling around to attack from behind.
In his mind, Li Mu’s attack power should not have been enough to withstand his longswords.
Not to ntion that Li Mu’s current staff technique was so flashy that it should have been impossible for him to truly exert force.
But what shocked him even more ca next.
After Chaotic Strikes at the Heavenly Palace, Li Mu flipped backward through the air, seized one end of the Ghostface Cudgel with one hand, and began swinging it in full circular arcs above and below himself.
And wherever Li Mu swung the Ghostface Cudgel, golden afterimages began to appear.
Its range and power were both far greater.
As his body flipped and leapt, golden radiance rolled wildly, sealing off his entire body so tightly that not even a drop of water could pass through.
Spirit Ape Stirring the Sea!
The force of swinging the Ghostface Cudgel one-handed in such great arcs was far beyond the strength of his earlier two-handed Chaotic Strikes at the Heavenly Palace.
The instant one of those longswords was hit by the Ghostface Cudgel, sparks flew everywhere and it was blasted dozens of ters away.
Each impact nearly severed the sword’s connection to the robed man.
Then ca a clear tallic crack.
One of the longswords was smashed cleanly in half by a cudgel strike that carried Iron-Cleaving Form, and its broken tip flew away.
“Damn it!!”
The robed man was truly enraged now.
He had never imagined that killing a re Third Grade Martial Artist would be this troubleso.
And on top of that, he had even had one of his weapons broken.
The last of the protective Gang Qi surrounding him tore free of his body and surged toward Li Mu.
Not far away, Li Mu’s eyes instantly lit up as he continued Spirit Ape Stirring the Sea.
This was the mont he had been waiting for.
The robed man’s strength truly was not weak. As long as that protective Gang Qi remained around him, Li Mu really would have had a hard ti closing in.
But now...
Pop!
In the middle of his rolling movent, Li Mu instantly vanished, as though he had never been there at all.
With his target gone, the robed man’s brows imdiately drew together as he scanned the surroundings.
At last, he looked toward the clown girl.
Not far away, she spread her hands in an impish shrug.
“Maybe he ran away?”
The robed man clenched his teeth in rage, looked down at his smashed right hand, and spat out viciously,
“That dog bastard. Next ti, I swear I’ll—”
Buzz!
Suddenly, an utterly discordant mosquito’s hum reached his ear.
A Fifth Grade Martial Artist’s instincts made every hair on his body stand on end at once, because he felt that an extrely terrifying mass of energy was right behind his head.
He roared, trying to raise his protective Gang Qi again.
But it was already too late.
With a soft pop, Li Mu appeared in midair behind his head. The Ghostface Cudgel, carrying a massive cudgel shadow and wailing like ghosts and howling spirits, smashed down straight toward the top of his head.
A sneak attack, a strike to the head, Flowing Cloud Fleeting Shadow, Overheavy Strike, and Iron-Cleaving Form—
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