Star Gate

Chapter 521: Making His Name Known (II)

Li Hao walked out of the ship’s hold to find the Demon Hunters swiftly cleaning up the battlefield. Scanning the area, he dove into the sea without a word. People clad in black armor were tossed out of the sea moments later. A dozen martial masters had fallen into the sea in the earlier battle; some were already unconscious. If Li Hao didn’t search them out, they would likely die in the depths.

Yun Yao started treating some of the injured martial masters. The Demon Hunter supernaturals had been cocooned in fantastic protection when the skirmish raged, which filtered out unnecessary trouble for them.

“We killed roughly five hundred supernaturals in this engagement,” panted Liu Long when he returned moments later. “It’s tough to gauge the exact number. I gathered nine storage rings and some of the Sunflares were also carrying them. I didn’t look into what exactly they held.

“There’s a place like a warehouse in the ship that holds some mysterious power stones, they might be general property. We collected roughly twenty thousand cubes of mysterious power. It would’ve been more, but too much dissipated and there’s also the bodies that fell into the sea...”

The twenty thousand cubes were personal possessions of these supernaturals. There was also an unknown amount in the storage rings to consider. Li Hao had two from the Novas; there might be a significant amount in the nine that Liu Long held.

“Chief.” The young man didn’t mind these findings, he was just a bit confused. “Although Silver City is small, the Inspectorate is still an institution worthy of trust in the people’s eyes. The province also finds the army trustworthy. People are excited to see inspectors or soldiers when they run into trouble. Why... has it turned to this?”

“Near River, or many places rather, are locales where soldiers do more harm than bandits,” Liu Long sighed. “You would think the soldiers are the bandits! The bandits might let you live, but the soldiers might take off your head and pretend you’re the enemy so they can earn merits!”

“Near River isn’t one of the three northern provinces...” Li Hao’s jaw dropped. “It has the Director General Office overseeing things, it hasn’t fully fallen apart...”

“It’s all the same!” Liu Long shook his head. “Besides, it’s just civilians dying, who cares about them? The nine ministries started off well enough, but they gradually spiraled out of control. It has to do with the rise of the supernatural as well. If this domain didn’t develop, the situation might be better after another few decades. But reforms stopped after the supernatural came to be, tying the hands of those at the ministries...”

The nine ministries had cherished a laudable heart for reform at first. Silver Moon was one of the beneficiaries—the nine ministries weren’t all bad, at least they were better than when the royal family ruled. But before their reforms could be completed, the supernatural appeared twenty years ago and broke everything in the process.

Thus, the age shifted to chaos!

Li Hao felt momentarily defeated, sensing that kind of darkness for the first time. No wonder these people cowered at the sight of soldiers... so soldiers could be worse than any alternative at times!

Then, Silver Moon was in a good state. The army in residence operated under strict regulation with Huang Yu at its head.

The young man breathed out, completely unaware of what he should be thinking about. His mind was a mess and he didn’t want to think of anything at the moment. The enemy may not be completely defeated.

“Mind the situation here.” He looked at Liu Long. “I’m going to the front for a look. Perhaps there are more pirates there!”

“Be careful!”

Li Hao set foot into the air without another word. He just wanted to get far away from here. There were many new revelations fighting to upend his worldview. So the world outside Silver Moon was even more frightening. So it turned out that Silver City was in decent straits. The scattered supernaturals that made their way over to the province were dispatched by Liu Long and the others. The three great organizations didn’t dare run too rampant, the army kept unrest under control, the Silver Moon Guards exterminated pirates...

The provincial government that he’d found so impotent seemed to be quietly operating well. The people’s livelihoods were stable—at the very least, he hadn’t heard of anyone dying from hunger in his lifetime.

“So... Silver Moon is a paradise?” Li Hao murmured incredulously to himself. Didn’t they say that being a borderland province, Silver Moon might be the poorest out of the ninety-nine? That the province was populated by savages? Didn’t they say that Silver Moon’s martial world was the most sinister of them all?

Why did it suddenly seem so much better than a lot of places?

There was unrest in the three northern provinces and Near River was said to be much richer than Silver Moon... but many of his notions were abruptly shattered in this moment. So this was all there was to Near River!

All sorts of thoughts floated to the forefront as Li Hao shot ahead. A dog tossed and tumbled over the sea, biting one last supernatural to death with a massive chomp.

“Can’t you imitate the major monster spirits and talk with your mind?” Li Hao looked at Panther. It was tiring not being able to communicate.

The dog looked blankly at him and shook its head. It couldn’t do that.

“Why not?”

Panther continued shaking its head. No was no, it didn’t know why. It could understand speech wanted to talk, or imitate the old turtle and communicate through mental ripples. However, it always fell a bit short, possibly because it was too weak!

Indeed, weak monster spirits couldn’t talk. As for when they could... they needed to grow stronger. They just needed to continuously grow stronger, much stronger than it was now. Perhaps speech would be possible then.

Li Hao was slightly disappointed. He waved a hand and picked up speed. Panther padded swiftly over the water surface, waves undulating beneath its feet. It felt very much like the aura of the Nine Forged Force.

The dog seemed to have reached an exceedingly high level of comprehension with the Nine Forged Force. It didn’t know anything else, just surface level knowledge of the Five Styles. When it came to the Nine Forged Force, it seemed to have grasped the method’s true meaning.

One human and one dog proceeded smoothly. Li Hao glimpsed another ship roughly a few dozen kilometers out. There were flags fluttering from it, but no lights. However, Li Hao saw approximately one hundred balls of light in the darkness!

One hundred pirates, and their caliber seemed very high! The ones he’d dispatched before contained even Starlight, but here, their weakest was Darkmoon. Most of them were Sunflare and there were three Solars. Although there were a lot fewer people compared to the previous ship, their overall quality was much higher.

The White Shark Raiders!

Li Hao read the group’s name from the flag snapping in the wind. So these were also White Shark Raiders. He hadn’t thought there’d be two groups of them here tonight, one led by a mid Nova and another by a late Nova.

It would seem that they placed quite some value on Silver Moon!

“Kill them all!” Li Hao transmitted to Panther as he soundlessly landed on the ship. Like an assassin, he locked onto a Solar and struck soundlessly. Pfft! He sliced a throat open!

“We’re under attack!” someone shrilled.

Li Hao roved throughout the ship like a king of the night. Stroke after stroke followed his steps. Being a martial master in silver armor, he was undetectable by his enemies. They only knew where he was after he killed someone.

“The enemy is too strong, run!” came a roar before the speaker jumped into the water. He promptly vanished as Panther ripped him to pieces. He couldn’t call out a warning, so pirate after pirate threw themselves into the water. Someone flew into the air, dropping as a corpse in the next second as sword light flashed through the void.

“We are the White Shark Troops, which esteemed personage...”

Pfft. The man split apart into pieces before he could finish talking. The White Shark Troops? How dare a bunch of cannibalistic pirates label themselves part of the military?!

Li Hao found the notion ludicrous! He attacked with abandon from the darkness. Even though he was gravely injured, he just wanted to kill these people as fast as possible! It wasn’t until he kicked open the ship’s hold six minutes later and killed a supernatural hiding inside that a smile spread across his face.

Where do you think you’re hiding?

Panther also hopped onto the ship. A human and a dog wandered around the ship, raising ghastly shrieks wherever they went. Some hoped to be lucky enough to evade their pursuit and retracted their mysterious power, but they were still as visible as ever to the duo. One used a pair of special eyes, the other sniffed out particular scents to track their targets.

The ship was quiet after a few more minutes; more storage rings collected in Li Hao’s hand.

“Deputy Liu, does anyone know how to steer the ship? Bring that ship over to me, we’ve captured another one here!”

“We do! We’ll be right there!” Liu Long quickly responded.

......

After approximately ten minutes, a tattered ship with some holes in its side drifted to the ship that Li Hao was on. Both ships were enormous and very durable, likely reinforced by mysterious power. There might even be other treasures refined into the large ship, making it impervious to supernatural attacks.

Liu Long and the others noted the corpses on the body. People jumped over and began cleaning up the battlefield without needing to be instructed to do so. Liu Yan joined them before long to make her report.

“We comforted the women for a while, but they’re still in an unstable emotional state.” She looked at Li Hao. “There are too many bodies on the first ship and they belong to civilians, so they shouldn’t be thrown into the sea. Leader, can we transfer them here?”

“Yes.” Li Hao inclined his head.

Liu Yan quickly returned to the first ship to make the provisions. Hong Qing walked over with reddened eyes and took off her armor. “Leader, they’re... in such a wretched state and have no home to return to. Can I bring them back to Silver Moon and take them back to the Sword Sect?”

“......” Li Hao blinked.

“We often have cases like these at the Sword Sect,” Hong Qing quickly added. “They’ll suffer lasting damage if they’re not properly looked after. We have the experience necessary. Otherwise, just giving them food and money will still result in them going mad after a period of time.

“At the Sword Sect, people who’ve gone through similar experiences can take care of them and guide them. They’ll survive their experience better this way and go on to a new life. If not... they’ll likely die no matter where they go.”

Li Hao nodded. He really didn’t know how to handle this kind of situation. He was much more at ease after Hong Qing’s words. The Sword Sect might be able to handle what he could not. He could kill, but it was very difficult for him to do anything else.