Chapter 9 Ashbourne!

Nesterin sat on a couch with a circular table in front of him. The table was large and around 40 men had gathered around it. Each man had their gun on the table.

"Partners!" Nesterin said. "For years the Black Wolves have bowed our head under those self-proclaimed immortals. Even when they took our sons and daughters right in front of our eyes, we have to keep our smiles. But today we have a chance! We have a chance to fight back! With this weapon, we can kill those magicians and the Black Wolves will take Ashbourne as its territories."

"Yeah!"

"Yeah!"

Jharteel knocked the table to silence the cheer. He was the one who got the pistols for the Black wolves, so Nesterin cherished him deeply. "Nesterin, aren't we being too hasty?"

"What do you mean, Jharteel?"

"Our attack in the forest has warned the Nefarious Sword of our capability to kill them. They would surely be prepared for our attack."

Nesterin nodded. "I'm sure they have prepared."

"Then why?"

Nesterin sighed. "The attack has made the Nefarious Sword investigate our weapons. I'm sure they already know what we use and who makes them."

Jharteel looked shocked. "If they kill him, the supply of this gun would stop!"

"Yes, that is why we need to attack their sect. I don't need a victory. But we must stall them. Also, our group has attracted a lot of investors."

"Investors? We aren't a company."

"Our attack against the cultivators is supported by the norms. Specifically, the rich ones. When cultivators want something, they always look for the wealthy, so their elimination is what those rich men desired the most."

"So what do we do now? Do we attack right away?"

"Yes, we will attack today, but we have to wait. Our contact informed me that a batch of guns will arrive. The maker of this gun probably knows that they are under threat. This is why we can expect there will be more guns and ammunition for us."

Jharteel and the other smiled. "Then I will call more of our members to use them. With more than 40 gunners, we can surely defeat those cultivators."

"Good. We'll let them train with the gun for a few hours. I don't want them to freeze in a fight."

"I will pick the toughest of our members!"

Nesterin dismissed his men and went to his room. It was a simple room with a bed, tables, and a wardrobe. He walked to the wardrobe and pulled the drawer.

There was a letter inside.

He unfolded the letter and read the content.

"I see. So he's one of us. I have to protect him at all costs. It will be a disaster if a great mind such as him died under the hand of cultivators."

Nesterin ripped the letter and swallow them. He left his bedroom and went to the storehouse. It was filled with broken mops, dusty boxes, rusty racks, and cobwebs. It also smelt disgusting. Anyone entering this storehouse would want to leave right away. That was the intention because this storehouse held a secret.

He walked a few steps and pried the rock under his feet. Light came in from the hole. A ladder ran down towards the narrow man-made cave that his men had built.

After making sure nobody was around, Nesterin went in. After he get down from the ladder, he crawled inside a small hole. This was intentional in case an enemy found their secret base. While he never thought of defeating a cultivator before, it could at least stall them for time. And as a mafia group, the Black Wolves always had enemies among the norms.

After he crawled for about 30 minutes, Nesterin heard gunshots. Jharteel was training the members.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

His men kept shooting like they had an unlimited amount of bullets. Well, considering much of the ammunition and pistols are owned by them, spending this much on training didn't hurt.

Nesterin reached the end of the small tunnel. Around a dozen men fired their pistols at the wooden statues in front of them.

"Nesterin," Jharteel greeted.

Nesterin nodded. "They are ready. You've trained them well."

"You should compliment them, instead. I barely teach them anything since I only used the pistol for a couple of weeks."

"Don't humble yourself too much. It's because of you that we can secure most of the pistols distributed. Anyway, we'll attack in the morning."

"Why not at night?"

"Attacking at night will only blind our men. It's much better to attack when we have a good view of our enemy. Call the rest of the men. Let's have a last-hour practice before we begin."

An hour later, more than 60 men came inside the cave. They all brought pistols in their hand and a small bag on their waist to carry the extra ammunition. A few weeks of training had given them a few ideas on how to be more effective in using the gun.

Nesterin fired a few shots at the statue before turning to the side to look at them. "Go. Fire a few rounds to let your muscles loose. I don't want any of you to have muscles cramp when we fight."

His men smiled and eagerly searched for their own statue to shoot at. More than 60 sounds of gunshots reverberated in the cave for three hours before the Black Wolves finally crawled out of their tunnel and set out for battle.

Near the city of Ashbourne, there was a volcanic mountain that spewed out boiling lava that ran down like a river. The volcano shot smoke and ash into the air all year, which was one of the reasons why the city was named Ashbourne.

The mountain was rich in materials such as iron, nickel, cobalt, silver, and gold. But its most important product was the spiritual crystal. Lots and lots of spiritual crystals spewed out of the volcano and slid down in the lava.

Because of its rich resources, a strong swordsman had decided to build a sect here to secure its resources. For years, that swordsman had recruited and trained countless swordsman cultivators. Today, that sect still stood strong and expanded vigorously every day.

The Nefarious Sword. Apprentice Temple. Located on the lower end of the Boiling Volcano.

Elaith grimaced as he held his stomach in pain. Even after the elders healed his wound, pain sometimes struck him where the bullets had entered his body.

The wooden door slid to the side. Elder Tasar stepped into his room, his white and red robe ruffled. "Are you still in pain?"

"No, Elder. I'm fine."

"I believe your expression did not lie."

"I had it worse before. This is nothing to me."

"I don't know about that. This is the first time in my life that a weapon created by norms could hurt a cultivator."

Elaith looked at the elder. "Are you not worried that the norms would rebel?"

"Rebel? No. From my observation of your wound, I have concluded that their weapon can only hurt the stage 2 cultivator at most. And the projectile that they shoot is not very lethal unless it hit vital organs. If they tried to rebel, our sect would send a stage 3 cultivator to wipe them out."

"Is the sect planning to retaliate, elder?"

"We do. But we will only send stage 2 cultivators."

"Why not send in stage 3 cultivators?"

"Stage 3 cultivators are elders in our sect, we don't have time to do these trivial matters. We don't even bring this to the sect leader."

In fact, it was already decided that the sect will use this to train the members. Swordsmen tend to be vulnerable to long-range assault, this led the elders to decide to use this opportunity to train the members fighting against ranged weapons. Elder Tasar didn't tell this to Elaith. That would defeat the purpose of the training.

Elaith nodded. Though he felt dissatisfied with the decision, he couldn't do anything about it. "Can I join this retaliation?"

Elder Tasar smiled. "Are you not afraid?"

"They killed my friends and senior brother. I must avenge them."

Elder Tasar nodded. "They will be proud of having a friend like you. Train well and prepare yourself. I must return to Master Temple, see you soon Elaith."

"Be careful on your way, Elder."

The elder smirked. "I'm a stage 3 swordsman, telling me to be careful is like insulting me. Make sure you don't say this to the other elders."

"I apologize, elder Tasar."

"Hm." The elder left his room, leaving Elaith alone in his wooden themed room.

"Why are the elders unwilling to move?" Elaith asked himself. "If they just send out one elder, then all those norms would die a miserable death."

Elaith shook his head. "I shouldn't question the elders. Their wisdom is much higher than mine."

He stood from his bed and was about to train until someone slammed his door to the side.

The man was sweating and had trouble breathing. "Elaith." The man caught his breath. "It's bad. There are norms climbing the mountain."

Elaith gritted his teeth and clenched his fist. He didn't think that the weapons the norm created would make them feel so arrogant. "What are you afraid of! Since when did the Nefarious Sword scared of a bunch of norms."

"But, they have pistols."

"Even if they have the Heavenly Swords that can pierce the heavens, the Nefarious Sword must not tremble in front of a norm! Where is our dignity! What will our fallen brothers and sisters think of us! Come on! Get the other apprentices to gather."

Elaith stormed out of his room and shouted for all the apprentices in the temple to gather at the square. There were a lot of apprentices traveling outside the sect to find opportunity and experience, so the one who gathered at the square was only a fraction of the amount of apprentice the Nefarious Sword had.

But that was enough for Elaith.

"Junior brother Elaith, why do you gather us all here."

Elaith was a promising disciple in the sect, this was why he received some respect even among the senior.

"Senior brother, there is a group of norms heading to our temple. And they do not plan to serve as our servant nor give us tribute for letting them lives, but they intended to attack us! How can we lift our heads in front of others in the future, if a bunch of norms dared to defy us."

"Are the norms bring pistols?"

There were other groups beside Elaith that got attacked by pistols, so this wasn't a secret.

"Yes, they do."

Some of the apprentice started to gasp and waver. They had seen their fellow brothers and sisters limping their way back to the temple with bloody holes in their body. Most of them survived after consuming a pill, but some of them arrived too late and died when they stepped inside the temple.

This was why the apprentices were so scared when they heard a group of norms with pistol. Stories and rumors had spread that the norms had created a super weapon that can kill a cultivator just by pointing it.

"Don't be scared!" Elaith shouted. "We swordsmen have trained to fight against ranged weapons. The reason why we lost against them is because we underestimated the norm. But now we know that their weapon shoot a projectile just like an arrow. And what do we know about arrows?"

"They can be deflected!" They shouted.

"That's right. So, I say we should charge down the mountain and show those arrogant norms what cultivators can do. Who's with me!"

"Me! I cannot let those norms become arrogant because of a new toy!"

"Me too!"

"Let's show those norms what we can do!"

"For the dignity of Nefarious Sword!"

"Nefarious Sword!"