Death Trap
Bruce contemplated on how to make money before turning into a literal beggar. Thinking for a few moments, he found several avenues to generate income. After finishing his meal and was ready to head out, he was stopped by one of the guards who came with the wealthy young man.
"Hey kid, wait up. Young master wants to talk to you" The guard grabbed Bruce's arm and forcibly dragged him upstairs. When he arrived upstairs, he saw the wealthy young man looking at a map with his uncle at the table.
Bruce was told by the guards to wait patiently by the side. A few moments later, the guards brought even more people upstairs. Everyone didn't know what was going on and eventually, the young man and his uncle turned around.
"Hello everyone, I'm sorry to make you all wait right here" The young man looked at everyone and it seemed like he was performing some sort of evaluation.
"Uncle, all of these people are at Body Refinement stage. We can easily use them as baits when we arrive at the lair of the azure wolf" The young man communicated with his uncle secretly through a charm transmission.
"Good idea Ike. We can use these trashes as baits while we obtain the thunder lotus from the azure wolf" Simon agreed with Ike's suggestion and released his aura to the surrounding.
Everyone turned fearful as the aura of a Soul Manifestation cultivator permeated the surrounding.
"Everyone, I have a great opportunity for you all. I will pay 10 gold coins for anyone who's willing to assist my group with a mission at a location nearby. Your task will be to pick up objects from the location. Once we finish with the tasks, I will send out the payment to each of you"
An uproar started after Ike's announcement. 10 gold coins can feed an entire family for a year. Everyone agreed to take up Ike's task including Bruce. However, he wasn't as naive as the others.
'Clearly, something is wrong here. Why would these people with high cultivation stages need some help from random body refinement cultivators? It's probably a death trap if anything. I could refuse but I have a feeling that bastard will kill me to save face'
Before leaving Meropis, Jennifer provided Bruce with an artifact that would hide his cultivation. Only divine emperor experts and above can detect his real cultivation if they examine his body personally. Currently, he has camouflaged his cultivation down to Low Stage Body Refinement. A perfectly normal cultivation for a young beggar one might say.
The entire group headed out to the location on the map where the thunder lotus was located. Right before the group reached the location, Ike looked at the people he hired and commanded them with a cold tone.
"All of you will need to move to the front now!" The body refinement cultivators were shocked to see the attitude of the young man change drastically. All the guards around Ike put up their weapons to indicate that everyone needs to do as Ike says or they die.
'How ruthless, it seems like they planned to kill everyone regardless if the treasure exists or not. I guess that's to be expected in this world.'
Bruce followed along with everyone and stood in the front. The group moved forward until they reached a lair. Inside the lair, there was a flower glowing brightly.
"Uncle, that's the thunder lotus. We finally found it after all this time!" Ike exclaimed excitedly as he saw the thunder lotus for the first time. But his excitement turned into fear when he saw a gigantic wolf coming out of the lair.
The azure wolf was a 3rd stage beast that has an equivalent strength of a peak soul manifestation expert. The azure wolf looked at the group menacingly and pounced toward them.
"Guards! Throw those trashes toward the wolf." Ike ordered his men to cruelly throw the innocent body refinement cultivators to the wolf to distract it.
The guards did as they told and threw all the hired men toward the wolf. The wolf slammed its sharp claws toward the flung men and killed them in one shot. When it was Bruce's turn, the wolf slammed its head against Bruce and knocked him away.
'Ah, that hurts you piece of shit dog.' Bruce cried internally as it was his first time getting hurt this badly. As Lisa was a great actress, so was Bruce. He coughed up blood and pretended to be dead. He even put out his tongue for safe measure.
"Shit, the azure wolf is stronger than I thought. It slaughtered the trash way too quickly. We need to kill it together." Simon gathered all his energy and slashed the azure wolf.
The slash destroyed all the trees in a straight line and injured the wolf. The guards who had elemental profound cultivation joined in and attacked the wolf when it was down. Meanwhile, Ike quickly tried to grab the thunder lotus.
Seeing what Ike was up to, the azure wolf stood up and caused a gigantic tremor that knocked everyone surrounding it. It then went straight to Ike and bit his shoulder.
"AAAAAHHHHHHH, Uncle Simon save me!" Ike screamed in pain as the wolf bit his shoulder. Simon quickly tried to cut the wolf's head off, but it dodged his attack. Unfortunately, the situation got worse for the group. A few more wolves showed up at the battle scene. These wolves belong to the pack controlled by the Azure Wolf.
The Azure Wolf howled and commanded the wolves in his pack to attack the invaders. These wolves jumped straight into the battle and fought the guards while the azure wolf fought Simon.
After one hour, most of the guards died, some guards were critically injured, and the minion wolves died. The only ones left able to fight were the azure wolf, Simon, and Ike.
With its last strength, the azure wolf flew toward Simon and bit his arm. Simon screamed in pain and stabbed the wolf in the head with his sword and ended the battle.
"Good job Uncle Simon, that dammed wolf finally died!" Ike thought he was going to die tonight after his shoulder was bit by the wolf, but it seemed like lady luck was on his side.
"Uncle Simon, you heal back up while I go get the thunder lotus." As Ike moved toward the thunder lotus in joy, he heard a thunderous noise.
BANG
When Ike turned around, he saw a hole in Simon's head. Without any delay, the thunderous noise rang once again.
BANG
BANG
BANG
BANG
Just like that, his guards were dead. When he looked at the perpetrator, he could not believe his eyes. It was the beggar kid he hired in the restaurant a few hours ago. He had thought the kid died when the wolf smacked him in the chest.
In his hand was a medium-length silver pistol. For the life of him, Ike could not figure out how a gun, commonly used by weaklings, could have killed his men.
Bruce coolly walked toward Ike with a mocking expression on his face.
"What's wrong young master? Cats got your tongue?" Bruce mocked Ike after Ike's expression became fearful.
"How does it feel to eat such good food, drink delicious wine, and sacrifice innocent lives as you please?" Bruce's face turned dark after remembering what Ike did to the innocent cultivators. These people had families and they just wanted to earn a living to provide for their families.
Ike dashed toward Bruce thinking that the gun ran out of bullets since Bruce did not shoot anything at him. Ike was at Early Stage Elemental Profound and Bruce was at Early Stage Body Refinement. It should be fairly easy for Ike to kill Bruce in battle.
Bruce swiftly moved to the side dodging Ike's weak punch and kicked him in the back. Ike plummet to the ground and became dumbfounded.
"Please, please, it was just a misunderstanding…." Ike started to stutter as he looked at the kid who resembled the grim reaper.
BANG
Bruce shot Ike in the knee causing him to scream in pain.
"Oh, I didn't know it was a misunderstanding."
"You can't kill me. I'm the young master of the…"
"Not interested"
BANG
Bruce shot Ike right in the head before he could threaten him with his background. After finishing off Ike, Bruce picked up Ike's storage ring to see what was inside.
'This asshole is quite rich. He has several thousands of gold coin in here and thousands of low energy crystals. I'll take some of his gold coins and give the rest to the family of the fallen men'
After Bruce finished sorting through Ike's storage ring, he moved toward Simon's body in search of a storage ring. As expected, Simon did have one and the contents were pretty much the same as those of Ike's storage ring. After looting everything, he moved to the main event of tonight, the thunder lotus.