Chapter 507 - Step Aside
Chapter 507: Step Aside
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Whether it was Elysium, Inferno, or any other large organization, they all consisted of a large group of people. And naturally, they could not avoid the hard currency of mankind: money!
No matter how strong one was, the basic needs of life such as food, clothing, housing, and transportations were unavoidable. The larger an organization was, the more funds it required. The expenditures for all kinds of equipment and weapons, as well as the cost of settling down, was rather large.
In order to improve the overall strength of the members, whether it be the purchase of pills for the strength-type martial artists, or matching equipment for intelligent-type martial artists, the money spent was an astronomical figure in the eyes of ordinary people.
Money didn’t grow on trees. Thus, major organizations could only raise the required funds through various channels.
Real estate had always been extremely lucrative. Elysium could send people to snatch money from these semi-triad gangs. Qin Fen naturally had reasons to believe that they hadn’t touched drugs, which the Golden Triangle was famous for.
The Golden Triangle was a place where countless people had no choice but to change their attitudes. The law of survival there was similar to the laws of the jungle. It was also a paradise for some people. It might be easy to lose one’s life there but at the same time, it was quite easy to make a fortune!
Of course, the premise was that you had a daring and dehumanizing black heart, and believed that drug trafficking wasn’t evil.
Apart from drugs, the Golden Triangle had something else that was relatively banned by the Federation and was extremely popular and lucrative: the life and death fights!
Although the Federation had developed the skybattle.net, which could easily satisfy most of one’s desire to fight while avoiding real injuries and deaths and often held various combat tournaments, they still could not satisfy many people’s inner desires for life and blood.
The pressure of society may have caused many people to commit suicide by jumping off the building but it had also forced countless people to hide their desire for violence deep in their hearts. For instance, a person who worked in a museum and held antiques worth hundreds of millions every day would have an urge to smash the antiques into pieces in his heart.
Blood, screams, a fistfight to death! This was also the deepest desire of countless people. However, the Federation only justified a life and death fight in the ring in one case only, and that was the Great Ensemble!
Great Ensemble, it could be said that it wasn’t the Federation’s wish but a wish of the topmost martial artists to create a special martial artist meetup that was not under the Federation’s jurisdiction, one with no restrictions. Anyone who participated in the Great Ensemble needed to be ready to die in the battle, otherwise, he mustn’t enter the Great Ensemble. It was also the martial arts tournament that the Federation claimed to be the one with the most serious injuries and death rate.
In fact, there was another kind of tournament with a higher mortality rate than the Great Ensemble, and that was the life and death arena of the Golden Triangle. Almost every battle would end with the death of someone.
Compared to the martial arts experts of the Great Ensemble, the star-class of the martial artists participating in the life and death arena of the Golden Triangle may be miles away, but the bloody fistfights weren’t inferior to the Great Ensemble in any way.
A monster had appeared in the Golden Triangle life and death arena six months ago, who was also known as the legendary madman.
It was already a legendary thing to survive in the life and death arena of the Golden Triangle for half a year, but his legend wasn’t about this point.
Fighting every day! This had never happened in the history of the Golden Triangle’s life and death arena. A man’s physical strength was limited. A boxer fighting a match every ten days was still regarded as frequent.
Every battle a leapfrog battle! A five-star martial artist fighting seven-star martial artist, and the battle ending with death. While the people were still reeling from the surprise of his tactics, this Legendary Madman did something that made him a real legend.
One versus many! Standing in the ring and challenging a bunch of six-star and seven-star martial artists with the strength of the five-star level! Since then, this man had become a special weirdo who fought a team of people in every battle.
For half a year, almost all the life and death matches in the Golden Triangle’s arena was fought by him. Hundreds of people lost their lives in his hand.
In the past six months, many organizations had wanted to recruit him but his answer was always no. If an organization wanted to strongarm him into joining him, the organization would cease to exist the next day; all the members from the upper echelons to the lower workers would end up dead.
In these six months, almost half of the veterans of the Golden Triangle’s arena, from top to bottom, had been wiped clean by this man. Now, most of the participants, when they heard that their opponent was Solomon, would throw in the towel as their first reaction.
They could fight in a life and death fight fearless of life and death but they didn’t want to die in vain fearlessly.
For half a year, the name Solomon, which was initially obscure, was gradually introduced into the ears of the generals of various forces.
Today was a special day in the Golden Triangle, people call this day the Harvest Festival. It was the most important festival in the Golden Triangle. There was only one such festival every year, which was used to celebrate the harvest of opium.
Although a great harvest of opium would not always be necessary every year, this festival was celebrated every year nevertheless.
For the generals of the Golden Triangle, this harvest festival had another meaning. And that was that it was time to redistribute the benefits; it may be the time of the re-election of the honorary commander.
In the Golden Triangle, some new forces rose and some old forces survived every year. Especially in today’s era of martial arts, when an individual’s martial strength reached a certain level, just a single person alone can cause amazing movements.
Except most of the martial dao masters cherished their own feathers. There were far too many ways to earn money. Even if they didn’t establish a sect, they could get a generous sum just for being a bodyguard. Naturally, martial dao master rarely relied on individual strength, they would kill their way directly into the Golden Triangle to occupy a site to play with.
The honorary commander was somewhat similar to the president with a term of three years. The honorary commander had the obligation to mediate the contradictions between the generals of the Golden Triangle. He could also receive a portion of the income from each mediation.
Apart from fighting hard all in order to earn money in the Golden Triangle, the generals didn’t like to go to war against each other. After all, jackals, wolves, tigers, and leopards were everywhere. Even if they won, they might be attacked by other forces because of the losses they had suffered. Generals preferred negotiating.
Today was the moment to elect the honorary commander for the next three-year term.
In the huge and extremely magnificent temple, the Buddha and his vajra sculptures had been repainted with gold powder. They looked particularly brilliant.
Dozens of middle and old-aged men and women wearing military uniforms of different colors with stars on their shoulders came to this huge temple, one after another. Everyone met and greeted each other in twos or threes, looking for the armchair with their name.
In the open space in front of the temple stood several dozen male and female martial artists with a murderous look on their faces. Each person had a round badge with Arabic numerals written on them hanging on their chests, with different words written on the back of their martial uniform: Blood Town Arena, Monster Stadium, Asura Dojo, Armed Field...
If the people who were familiar with the Golden Triangle’s life and death arena were here, they would be very surprised. These were the names of the venues for the Golden Triangle’s life and death fights.
Opposite to these men stood a young man wearing a martial uniform, neat and clean but stained in blood. The badge hanging on his chest didn’t bear any Arabic numerals, rather there was the word ‘king’ [王] written in bold, red letters!
Every life and death arena had this kind of badge. Only those who had fought the most in the arena could hang this badge on their chests. It was a symbol of identity.
Today, there was no second person in the entire Golden Triangle’s life and death arenas with the king’s badge hanging on their chests.
Since three months ago, the last man to wear the king’s badge was from the Blood Town Arena, a fourteen-star martial artist who was killed by Solomon using the strength of the twelve-star level. After he was beaten to death in the ring, no one else wore the king’s badge anymore.
The Monster Stadium was also originally a possessor of the king’s badge. After that fourteen-star martial artist heard that the Blood Town Arena’s king’s badge possessor was beaten to death by Solomon, he threw the badge away voluntarily, he no longer hung this badge.
The life and death fight at the Harvest Festival had become an important activity in the Golden Triangle already. Being able to survive in this Federation, the Golden Triangle martial arts were far more prosperous than the Federation.
Over these six months, Solomon had been fighting all over the Golden Triangle. And from the beginning to the end, he had been sticking to the rules set by him even if he encountered any dangerous situation in the ring; he would rather be beaten to death than use the strength that was only just one level lower than his opponent! He always maintained a gap of two star-classes at the very least.
Almost all the martial artists of every life and death ring had been praying every day for this martial artist, who had come out of nowhere and had yet to show his true strength, to depart from the Golden Triangle as fast as possible.
Dozens of generals had already taken their seats. Only the seat in the middle was empty. Everyone knew that it was the seat of the current honorary commander, Xianglong, someone with really strong martial strength. In addition to fairly powerful strength in generals’ hands, the Golden Triangle could be so calm today was because of this honorary commander.
If a martial artist whose level out classed ordinary people sincerely wanted to make trouble in the Federation, it was difficult for an ordinary army to catch him. Even if they sought assistance from the Sacred Martial Hall to mobilize super-level masters to besiege him, perhaps by the time he was killed, he would have caused unimaginable losses to many of the Federation cities.
Like this, the angry citizens would drive the president off the throne.
The generals looked at each other and read the message in each other’s eyes. This term’s honorary commander will still be Xianglong.
Everyone’s eyes were all smiles. It was very clear to them that this was just an interlude, nothing more, nothing less. However, it didn’t matter. Although this commander charged more than the previous commander in mediation fees, the Golden Triangle had hardly been encircled and attacked by the government forces ever since he had appeared.
“Everyone, sorry, I’m late! Really sorry!”
A bold voice full of complacency echoed as a man came from the other end of the spacious corridor. The man was bald and two meters tall. His upper bare body was tattooed with a black dragon coiled around his body. The dragon’s head went down his arm until his palm, giving the impression that he was holding the dragon’s head in his hand.
No eyebrows, no beard, not even a single piece of hair, just like a huge clean egg, but there was a valiant and fierce aura around him. He cupped his fist to the generals around him while maintaining a majestic gait. When he walked past those martial artists of the life and death arena, these people, who were already used to life and death, retreated a step back unconsciously one after another, to avoid that bloating aura of power before lowering their heads, not daring to look at this man.
The generals sitting of the armchairs stood up, one after another, and hastily responded to his words, “Commander, we came early, in fact.”
“Commander, your elegance had grown more than the last time I saw you.”
Commander!? Solomon tilted his head slightly, looking at this robust man passing him by; his eyes filled with interest.
Sensing Solomon’s expression, Commander Xianglong swept a glance at Solomon through the corner of his eyes and smiled gently. But a slightly noticeable frown appeared on his forehead, secretly surprised. Is this the rumored man who swept all the life and death rings, Solomon? The contemporary head of the European Solomon Family!? My eyes aren’t playing tricks, are they? Why is he here? Half a year ago, he killed David Solomon, swept through four families in succession with a group of young men, then killed Zuo Dongting in the Sahara later!? And at their most ferocious moment, they suddenly disappeared out of thin air but one of them has actually come here!?
Xianglong looked back at Solomon frequently, his eyes scanning him again and again. Rumor has it that Qin Fen and his team rarely moved separately. Since Solomon is here, what about Qin Fen and the others? What is Solomon doing here? After they killed Zuo Dongting, shouldn’t they be joining Snake King Du Hen to Saturn? Why is he here? Is the military interested in drugs? Impossible! Do they want to destroy the reputation of the military?
Xianglong sat on the commander-in-chief’s seat but his mind was still preoccupied with Solomon. Even when the staff beside him spoke, he only nodded subconsciously.
Qin Fen, Yang Lie... The names of these people were on the tip of almost everyone’s tongue! Many really powerful and influential would gather information about them and even speculate their characters according to their way of doing things.
Collectively rebel against the families, then swept and seized the patriarch’s thrones, and finally, hand over the four families to Xing Wuyi to manage. This was not something an average courageous person could do.
The current four families were exactly the same as the four families half a year ago. But Xing Wuyi, after having integrated the resources of the four families, had fully shown to the world what was called an incomparable sense of the overall situation and decisive judgment; the comprehensive strength of the four families had doubled in these six months.
Humans were very strange. Even if Xing Wuyi had a real tacit understanding with the four families, this speed was too fast. They had many things on their hands but things always went surprisingly smooth.
Sometimes, the crux of a problem was clearly an inconspicuous person but many people would ignore him, or if this insignificant figure was more difficult to handle than influential figures, they could easily disregard him even more so.
Many people couldn’t figure out why this was so. Only a few people, such as Xing Wuyi, knew that there were many things that could be completed so smoothly. In fact, it was Qin Fen’s blessing.
In real life, a group of people might seem unconnected but they had a great connection in one place: the special network that many people didn’t pay attention to, the skybattle.net.
More than two years ago, an organization called Dragon Hall was formed on the skybattle.net. With the passage of time, Zhang Xiangyang’s occasional expansion, as well as the help of Tianbei’s policemen who had already become the main force of Dragon Hall, they had largely developed the Dragon Hall.
On the skybattle.net, apart from Zhang Xiangyang’s organizational ability, the police’s martial strength was also a huge deterrent.
Martial artists who had completed True Inborn Blood Transfusion Rebirth were very rare on the skybattle.net. But there were exceptions.
The gang of young people in Tianbei’s police department had all surprisingly completely the Blood Transfusion Rebirth under the guidance materials that Qin Fen had left to Kyokushin Genichi at that time. Some had even reached the eleven-star level.
On the skybattle.net that was lacking martial dao masters, such a group of ten-star and above martial artists was a super scary group.
In the past two years, the Dragon Hall had developed super fast on the skybattle.net. And Zhang Xiangyang indeed had the skills to build a real core circle in this virtual world.
The people of this circle were from all kinds of industries. And all these people knew one thing, and that was that the creator the Dragon Hall was one of the most popular martial artists today, Qin Fen!
A young martial dao master was a huge appeal. When this secret was divulged to these people, they became more attentive to the Dragon Hall and truly developed this virtual organization into a hidden organization that also existed in reality.
All kinds of people with complex but clear relationship networks not only communicated on the battle net but also helped each other in real life. When they came to know the relationship between Qin Fen and the four families, everyone did their best when they were involved in the business of the four families.
These seemingly small forces exerted amazing abilities. Often, before Xing Wuyi could employ some of his plants, these people would have used their relationship to solve the problem in advance. Xing Wuyi was amazed by this pleasant thing.
Everyone was doing their best. Everyone had gotten a message from Zhang Xiangyang, that was that their Dragon Hall’s founder, Qin Fen, was preparing for the divine beast title.
Proud! Every core member who got the news from Zhang Xiangyang was extremely feeling proud of himself and their choice back then.
If Qin Fen was truly known as a divine beast martial artist, the Dragon Hall would no longer be a virtual organization on the internet. It would become a huge organization that occupied a planet!
At that time, the Dragon Hall would make its appearance in the world! All the core members of the Dragon Hall would have something worthwhile to do on that planet then!
Pride, glory, and the impact on future interests, which core member would not go all out? This motivation was directly reflected in their daily work. They had made a lot more achievements than before. Naturally, this was appreciated by the boss and they were given a promotion and a raise in salary. Or, since some people were the boss themselves; they led their company forward and improved their company’s position in the industry.
Whenever Xing Wuyi thought about this, he would be surprised. A virtual Dragon Hall had actually caused such a huge reaction all because of Qin Fen’s relationship, forming an invisible but a real and solid huge force. More importantly, Qin Fen hadn’t had a hand in it.
If he personally initiated it, then what kind of effect would it bloom? Xing Wuyi was looking forward to it.
“Mr. Xing, Qin Fen and others have already left for the Golden Triangle after destroying Mount Everest.”
“Golden Triangle!?” Xing Wuyi withdrew his sight from outside the window and slowly turned around. “Golden Triangle!? For Solomon!? When things can be solved with just a phone call, why are they going personally?”
“This...” The beautiful secretary, learning Xing Wuyi’s habit of pushing the glasses, pushed her red spectacles up. “According to the information, Elysium’s Mysterious Daughter of Nine Skies went to Mount Everest for Qin Fen. According to the analysis, there was a ninety-seven percent chance that they wanted to invite Qin Fen to join Elysium.”
“Join Elysium!?” Xing Wuyi’s smiled carried three-tenths of a killing intent and seven-tenths of mockery. “This Mysterious Daughter of Nine Skies’ calculations are pretty good but unfortunately, it seems she doesn’t have all the information on Qin Fen... at least, she doesn’t know about Gun King’s matter.”
“That’s quite normal.” The female secretary said, as if it was a matter of the course. “Gun King might be strongest in the sniper field but in his world, where martial strength is paid more attention to, his star-class was too low. He will not be noticed by Elysium. Even if they found that Qin Fen’s drill instructor was Gun King, they would not link it to the sniper on Saturn.”
Xing Wuyi also nodded his agreement. A satisfied look appeared on his usual expressionless face. This secretary was rumored to be a twenty-seven-years old virgin. He always found it easy and pleasant to talk to her.
“Is that so? Golden Triangle!?” Xing Wuyi looked at the calendar card on the table and smiled. “Golden Triangle’s Harvest Festival! Qin Fen just happens to go knocking on their doors today! Isn’t Golden Triangle really lively today? Secretary Chen, please lend me a military satellite that can observe the Golden Triangle immediately.”
“Are you going to watch the excitement?”
“But of course.” Xing Wuyi sat back on the office chair with his legs on the table. “I’m tired of working every day. I didn’t get to see the spar on Everest, should I let go of this Golden Triangle’s opportunity as well?”
“Isn’t this an abuse of power!?”
Xing Wuyi looked at his secretary with a very serious look on his face. “Yes, this is an abuse of power.”
When the secretary exited the room, she looked at Xing Wuyi, her interest piqued. She felt a little puzzled. Why is this head of four families, who usually dealt with everything very calmly and didn’t waste even a single penny, being so extravagant today? This is completely out of line with his character.
“Qin Fen... harvest festival... interesting...” Xing Wuyi smiled as he looked at the projection screen that popped up on the desk not long after. This secretary was really efficient. The military satellite was already locked; the scene before him happened to be of that huge temple of the Golden Triangle.
Xianglong shook his head and said, withdrawing his attention from Solomon, “Ladies and gentlemen, according to the traditional rules, the honorary commander for the next three years should be elected first, and then the distribution of forces. I, Li Xianglong still want to run for the commander for another term...”
“I agree!”
“Yes! Commander Li is the most suitable person.”
“That’s right, that’s right! Although the generals present here are all outstanding, I will only serve Commander Li...”
Li Xianglong hadn’t even finished speaking before the group of generals started agreeing, one after another. A satisfied smile took over his face. I have not been managing this land all these years in vain. Last time, someone stepped forward for a competitive election but this time, no one has stepped out.
“Haha, I’m really indebted to everyone for giving me this opportunity, then, I...”
“Step aside!”
A domineering voice from the sky interrupted Li Xianglong’s pretentious words.