"Chi! Chi! Chi!"
Dozens of sword shadows pierced through the bandit's body in an instant, tearing through his divine body and leaving behind severe wounds.
By the time Oakes arrived in front of him, he thrust his sword forward without hesitation, driving the blade straight through the bandit's skull and killing him instantly.
With a flick of divine sense, Oakes collected the Highgod's divine spark.
Then the longsword in his hand trembled slightly. A clear, resonant sword hum spread across the entire battlefield.
The Gods present were the first to suffer. Their souls shattered under the vibration of the sword's resonance, collapsing instantly.
Even the Highgods were affected by the soul attack. Their movements faltered for a split second during their battles with the Fiends, revealing fatal openings. The Fiends seized the opportunity and quickly inflicted heavy injuries on them.
"Damn it!"
Seeing that they would all die here if they didn't flee immediately, the Highgod leader battling Edmond gritted his teeth.
He forcefully endured one of Edmond's attacks, then turned and fled from the battlefield at once.
The remaining three Highgod bandits also tried to escape.
But by then Edmond had already freed his hands.
His figure suddenly split into dozens of shadowy forms, surrounding the three bandits completely.
It was the Darkness Law's Shadow Clone technique.
Each clone possessed only a tenth of Edmond's strength, but even that was enough. Given Edmond's power, his clones were only slightly weaker than true Highgods.
Among the three bandits, the female Water-element Highgod who had refined a divine spark was quickly entangled by five clones and couldn't escape.
The Earth-element Highgod, however, was far stronger.
He stomped heavily.
A powerful shockwave spread through the ground, instantly shattering more than a dozen shadow clones that blocked his path.
Even Gross was forced backward by the tremor.
Clearly, the technique he had used wasn't a simple Earth Pulse attack. It likely combined multiple profound truths of the Earth Laws.
Still, he had not fully fused them.
His strength had reached the level of a Four-Star Fiend, but he had yet to truly step into the realm of a Five-Star Fiend.
At that moment, a streak of wind flashed across the battlefield.
Oakes had arrived.
As a wind-element god, his speed was naturally astonishing.
But the real reason he had rushed over so quickly was something else entirely.
After seeing the Earth-element bandit's strength, a thought had formed in Oakes's mind.
Lord Locke had instructed him to deliver a message to Fiend Ryan, which clearly meant Ryan would be entrusted with some kind of mission.
From a purely combat standpoint, Ryan was a Five-Star Fiend.
And if Oakes fought with his full strength, he could also reach that level.
So why had Lord Locke assigned the task to Ryan rather than to him?
What exactly was the difference between them?
After thinking it over again and again, Oakes arrived at one conclusion.
Ryan had followed Lord Locke much earlier.
Under Ryan's command, there must already exist a personal force—one far stronger than Oakes's Blackstone Tribe.
That made Ryan better suited for certain tasks.
At this point, news of Ryan being personally recognized by a Main God as a Six-Star Fiend had not yet spread, so Oakes had no idea Ryan's strength had already advanced further.
Even Locke himself had only inferred it based on Ryan's closed-door cultivation.
Determined to serve Lord Locke better in the future, Oakes decided he needed to build his own group of capable subordinates.
And the Earth-element Highgod before him had caught his eye.
In terms of character, when Gross's Meteor Rain attack had fallen earlier, this man—along with the Water-element Highgod—had tried to shield the Gods nearby.
In terms of strength, he possessed power comparable to Gross, a Four-Star Fiend.
If he fully fused the two profound truths he was using, he could immediately reach the level of a Five-Star Fiend.
Perhaps he could go even further someday.
Because Oakes intended to recruit him, he used his full strength in this strike.
"Chi!"
A streak of green swordlight flashed.
The Earth god's defensive Law technique shattered instantly.
The swordlight continued forward, slicing across his chest.
"Pff—!"
The Earth-element Highgod was blasted backward, blood spraying from his chest and splattering across the surrounding forest.
A god's flesh and blood were formed from divine power.
To beings below the god level, divine power was both poison and nourishment.
If the trees soaked in that blood managed to absorb the divine energy, they might one day develop intelligence and become special lifeforms capable of cultivation.
If they failed to absorb it, however, the divine power would corrode them until they withered and died.
"A… Five-Star Fiend?"
Feeling the devastating damage inflicted upon him, the Earth-element bandit stared at Oakes in shock.
There was actually a Five-Star Fiend hidden in this escort team?
Even now, a Five-Star Fiend was powerful enough to become the lord of a large city.
It seemed he was truly doomed this time.
A trace of regret flickered in his eyes.
But when facing death, the man showed no fear.
Ever since he had been forced into banditry—tricked and threatened until he became a fugitive on Fiend Castle's bounty list—he had known this day would eventually come.
He simply hadn't expected it to arrive so soon.
He had thought he could survive at least two rounds of Fiend Castle's extermination missions.
Whoosh!
Oakes landed beside him.
Seeing the man lying there without resistance, Oakes suddenly found himself at a loss.
Though he had been the leader of Blackstone Tribe, the tribe had once been so weak it was on the verge of annihilation. Oakes had never dared recruit outsiders for fear they would be dragged into the tribe's troubles.
Later, when they exchanged their remaining inkstones for two Lowgod divine sparks, the candidates had been chosen collectively by the tribe.
In other words, Oakes had never recruited subordinates before.
He had no idea how to begin.
Meanwhile, the injured Earth-element Highgod waited for some time, expecting death.
When nothing happened, he finally looked up at Oakes.
"My lord… you're not going to kill me?"
"Mm."
Now that the man had spoken first, Oakes felt relieved.
Without beating around the bush, he spoke plainly.
"I think you're quite capable. I'd like to take you as my subordinate. What do you think?"
The bandit blinked in confusion.
"My lord… do you not know that I'm already wanted by Fiend Castle?"
"If you take me in, you might also become a target of their bounty."
Indeed, since bandits couldn't enter cities, some people risked acting as intermediaries for them—entering cities to purchase supplies in exchange for high payment.
Once discovered, such people would also have their soul auras recorded and be placed on the bounty list.
"I see…"
Oakes genuinely hadn't known this.
After hearing the explanation, he hesitated.
But the man's honesty only made Oakes admire his character even more.
In the end, Oakes made his decision.
"I understand. But I still want you to join me."
"Here's what we'll do."
"Go to this place. There's a tribe there called Blackstone Tribe. When you arrive, ask to see someone."
"Tell him you're a subordinate I've just recruited. Explain your situation and see if he has any way to resolve it."
Oakes quickly explained the location of Blackstone Tribe and gave a few additional instructions before turning back toward the metal lifeform.
The person he intended the man to meet was, of course, Locke.
In Oakes's mind, since Fiend Castle had been founded by Lord Locke, removing someone from the bounty list should not be too difficult.
"Blackstone Tribe…"
Looking at the map Oakes had given him, the bandit's expression became conflicted.
"Should I go?"
He compared the distance between his own tribe and Blackstone Tribe.
In the end, he made his choice.
Since he had taken so long to return, the bandit who escaped earlier might already believe he was dead.
If that were the case, his tribe could already be suffering under terrible circumstances.
But even if he returned now, his tribe would still remain a puppet under that bandit group's control.
If he went to Blackstone Tribe instead, perhaps there was still a chance to break the situation.
The man who had just defeated him—someone with the strength of a Five-Star Fiend—was only a God.
If the person that God referred to as "Lord" truly existed within Blackstone Tribe, how powerful must that individual be?
That lord didn't even need to be extremely strong.
If he possessed the strength of a Five-Star Fiend and could hold off the bandit leader, the man himself could kill the rest of the bandits and save his tribe.
With that thought in mind, he used divine power to quickly restore his divine body.
Then he set off.
Each step carried him dozens of meters forward, his figure moving through the forest like a phantom as he rushed toward Blackstone Tribe.
Oakes and the others had departed Yao Guang City aboard their metal lifeform.
It had taken about a month and a half before they encountered the bandit attack.
The man, however, spent more than a year traveling at full speed using Earth Movement techniques before finally arriving at Blackstone Tribe.
"So, this is… Blackstone Tribe?"
Standing outside the settlement, the man stared in shock.
His divine sense spread outward.
In an instant he sensed five Highgods, over twenty Gods, and nearly a hundred Demigods within the tribe.
While the number of Gods and Demigods was still lower than that of a city, the number of Highgods already exceeded that of some small cities.
"Who dares spy on Blackstone Tribe?!"
The moment his divine sense swept across the tribe, the Highgods within detected it.
With an angry shout, four Highgods shot into the sky from the tribe.
They locked onto the man's position and quickly surrounded him.
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