Sword Among Us

“What a bunch of useless people.”

Towering Palace’s Vice Palace Master Vast Heaven stood not too far away from Sky Demon Branch and stared at Abu leaving with his group in an incredibly pathetic manner. His gaze was cold, and his expression was unpleasant.

During the trip to Sky Demon Secret Cave, he had fled in an incredibly dishonorable manner. He wasted an entire day in there, but gained nothing and even lost a group of great players from Towering Palace.

It was also because of that operation that the cries of people in the game declaring that he was not as great as Happy and One Emperor grew louder. In fact, there were even people who said that he could not compare to Silver Wolf and others like him.

Vast Heaven was troubled and angered by it for a long time. His first thought was to regain his honor in Sky Demon Secret Cave, but the Sky Demon Orders in the market became increasingly harder to buy, and even if there were any, he would not dare to enter Sky Demon Secret Cave recklessly.

The establishment of Sky Demon Branch by Mu Clan caused his thoughts of wiping away his disgrace by reentering Sky Demon Secret Cave to be a dream far away from him.

Towering Palace’s Clear Music had even given the order to temporarily suspend all operations to Sky Demon Secret Cave and told him to return to the coastal area.

From this, it was clear just how wary Towering Palace was of Mu Clan and Happy.

What enraged Vast Heaven even more was that during the martial arts tournament, Clear Music had been incredibly polite to him, but for some reason, the palace had suddenly promoted a few unfamiliar faces as hall chiefs.

All of them were newcomers!

But those people had shot to the ranks of higher ups at rocket speed, and one of them even became a vice palace master, sharing the same position as Vast Heaven.

This made Vast Heaven, who had become very arrogant after he inherited Six Pulses Divine Sword, to feel horrible for a long time.

But he could not refute Clear Music’s arrangements. In fact, he could not show any sort of anger. He could only stay around for a few days while stewing in his anger.

In that time, he had made preparations to intercept the southwestern elites after they challenged Mu Clan and Happy. He wanted to give those southwestern elites a “pleasant” surprise once they won against Happy or the elites from Mu Clan and were on their way back.

Even if Vast Heaven could not do anything to Mu Clan, he could use the corpses of the southwestern elites to boost his reputation and elevate his status by indirectly stomping on Mu Clan.

What Vast Heaven did not expect, however, was that Abu and his men would leave in a pathetic manner after coming with an aggressive momentum. They lost and were forced to go back to their country without even being able to force out a real elite from Mu Clan.

In such a situation, it was not appropriate for Vast Heaven to attack…

He could only watch Abu and his group leave into the distance. Once they were gone, he looked away and stared at Sky Demon Branch for a long time before snorting coldly and leaving as well.

*****

Groups of people moved about outside Sky Demon Sect.

Happy and Silver Wolf appeared at the periphery in an unexpectedly flashy manner. Along with them were two hundred Mu Clan members, as well as All-powerful Medicinal Stone, Momo, Wind Chimes, and Little North.

Even though the group never cleared out the place or showed any intention of controlling the resources, once many sects recognized the lineup, they sensibly chose to move away.

The Mu Clan members were used to it.

Right then, Mu Clan was the best clan in China in terms of West Region and Jiangnan. Class One Hall had been publicly slapped in the face when Happy went to Beijing. Then, they were forced dozens of miles away by Happy with just three moves when they met each other at the foot of Mount Song. They even gave up a large region at that time.

Vast Heaven of Towering Palace had also taken the initiative to give up on Sky Demon Secret Cave.

Those and other events made the gamers firmly believe that Mu Clan was the strongest player sect in the game.

Mu Clan was also the only party to never return empty-handed from the treasure island that was Sky Demon Secret Cave.

Hence, many people thought that it was completely reasonable that Mu Clan would come.

At such a time, no one would try to compete with Mu Clan in terms of resources or strength to enter Sky Demon Secret Cave.

*****

Happy sat down for a while outside Sky Demon Sect. Momo, who had been watching him quietly from the side spoke up at that moment. “Do you have something on your mind?”

“Hmm?” Happy opened his eyes and cast Momo a puzzled gaze.

She frowned. “You can’t lie to me. You’d never slack off like this in the past. You’d seize every single second you have to train or do quests instead of daydreaming.”

Happy said nothing and just smiled wanly.

“What are you thinking about?” Momo looked at him curiously. “Right now, Mu Clan is enjoying smooth operations, and it’s developing very quickly.

“I also heard that you’ve signed an agreement in the real world with the official developers of World of Martial Arts to serve as a spokesperson for their clothing line. This is something great, so why do you still look like you’re very troubled? Are you worried about your match against One Emperor?”

“They weren’t lying when they said that women are very sensitive.” Happy smiled wanly, sighed, and answered her. “I don’t know whether it’s because I obtained too many things, but when I feel like I’m about to lose it, and it makes me anxious…”

“You’re scared?”

“Yeah.” Happy nodded without bothering to hide it.

“Why?” Momo could not understand, and she lowered her voice. “You have four ultimate techniques now, and you’re publicly acknowledged as the best in the game. Your equipment won’t lose to One Emperor’s either. There’s no reason for you to be afraid of losing to him…”

“I’m not afraid of losing to One Emperor.”

Momo said nothing for a moment. Then, a thought appeared in her mind. “I think so too. Last time, when we thought that One Emperor was incredibly powerful, you weren’t this hesitant.”

She sucked in a deep breath and asked, “Then, are you worried that there will be changes in Mu Clan after you lose?”

Once she said those words, Momo shuddered and suddenly looked at Rampaging Dragon, who was in the distance, and realization appeared on her face.

“I see, it’s no wonder why you brought out four sets of fourth-echelon equipment in one go and created four top-class elites for Mu Clan.”

Aside from Rampaging Dragon and Phoenix Dances, there were two other people who also obtained the incredibly valuable fourth-echelon equipment. One of them was Butt Shaker, and the other was One Circle. They were both veterans of Beautiful Robes Faction.

Happy said nothing.

Momo quickly linked everything together, and the worry in her eyes became more obvious.

The establishment of Sky Demon Branch, the subtle adjustment among the higher-ups in various areas, along with the generous distribution of fourth-echelon equipment made it seem like Happy was making preparations for an upcoming storm.

When he heard it, Happy smiled faintly.

“It’s not four sets, but eight.”

‘What?!’

Momo was so shocked that she was dumbfounded.

A single set of fourth-echelon equipment was already worth cities, which was more than forty billion taels of silver.

She did not expect that Happy would secretly get four extra sets.

Just how much did Mu Clan earn?

Happy did not notice Momo’s shocked and surprised expression. “If a large sect allows too many people to see their depths, it will not be far away from crumbling! That’s why I intend to cultivate a few people whom you are unfamiliar with as future secret weapons of Mu Clan. They’ll be considered as an extra security measure for the unknown future after my battle ends with One Emperor.”

Momo said nothing.

Silver Wolf had his back turned to them. His body trembled a little, but he did not turn his head around.

Momo stared at Happy with a complicated gaze.

“Is One Emperor really that good?”

“I can’t say.” Happy stopped for a moment, then explained his words in a calm voice. “I only hope that if I fail, I will not deal too much of a blow to Mu Clan and it will still be like a bedrock. I don’t want a repeat of what happened to Beautiful Robes Faction, when our enemies took the opportunity to take advantage of us.”