Chapter 131: Thousands of Bandits

"Chief? Chief?"

Beside Chief Guo stood an elderly man with a long beard, whose appearance instantly marked him out as a military strategist or advisor of sorts. In truth, he was indeed the resident strategist here, a formidable figure who could be said to be below one person yet above ten thousand.

However, despite him tentatively calling out "Chief" twice, Chief Guo remained frozen like a crashed computer, as if entirely deaf to the advisor's words.

Mustering a deep breath, the advisor leaned right up to Chief Guo's ear and roared, "Chief!!"

His long beard almost brushed inside Chief Guo's ear. Anyone stumbling upon this scene would undoubtedly have assumed that these two grown men were engaged in some illicit business, such as back-alley trysts.

The tableau was simply too intimate. Chief Guo wore a bewildered expression resembling the naive female lead in a romance novel, while the strategist leaned in so close to his ear that he was practically on the verge of kissing the chief's earlobe.

Even the slightly dim-witted, short bandit who had brought the news stared with his jaw dropped, feeling his brain cells struggling to keep up. Could their own chief and their own strategist actually be sharing a forbidden romance?

At that moment, the flame of gossip in his heart made him entirely forget what a catastrophic disaster he had just caused.

The strategist's full-throated roar completely roused the dazed Chief Guo. His eyes gradually cleared as he sorted out all the information methodically and logically.

At that instant, Chief Guo's frigid gaze suddenly shifted toward the short, news-bringing bandit. If not for this bastard blurting out the intelligence so loudly at such a time, he could have kept the windfall all to himself.

Noticing the icy gleam in Chief Guo's eyes, the strategist looked at the short bandit with utter pity before letting out a cold chuckle.

Before the short bandit could even react, his eyes suddenly widened in disbelief as he lowered his head to look at the soft sword piercing straight through his chest.

Spurts of bright red blood, mixed with a few bubbles, gushed out from the wound. Before the short bandit could utter a single word, the soft sword suddenly twisted, instantly expanding the wound on his chest into a fist-sized bloody cavern.

"Bang!"

The short bandit's body finally collapsed limply to the ground. The previous sword strike had punctured his heart, and his last remaining scrap of consciousness made him widen his eyes in a desperate struggle.

Gazing at the man who had killed him, the depths of his eyes were filled with lingering resentment and reluctance, until his gaze finally glazed over and life faded completely.

The strategist slowly withdrew the soft sword from the short bandit's chest, trailing a spray of blood that pooled across the floor, staining the grey fur carpet crimson.

Stepping forward, Chief Guo delivered a vicious kick to the short bandit's corpse, sending it flying an unknown distance until it smashed into a boulder, reducing the body to such a bloody pulp that even his own mother would have failed to recognize him.

"Hmph! Strategist, pass down my order! Take a band of brothers and slaughter that fat sheep for me! If anyone from the other mountain strongholds dares to reach out, chop their fucking hands off!"

Chief Guo spat out a thick glob of phlegm and continued fiercely, "Our master family is the premier clan in Tianyang City, and here in these mountains, we are the premier stronghold! That idiot just said the fat sheep has an enormous amount of Primordial Stones, comparable to a top-tier third-rate clan. If this turns out to be true, once we get our hands on those stones, the clan head will undoubtedly shower us with heavy rewards!"

"As for that dead idiot—hmph! A brainless fool! If some other stronghold beats us to the punch and gets to the fat sheep first, not only will I kill him, but I'll wipe out his entire clan to the ninth generation!"

Before long, Chief Guo personally took the field, leading dozens of bandits wielding gleaming weapons as they charged toward Chen Bo's location.

"Hurry up! Did you bastards not eat today? You're raised to serve the master family! Whoever lags behind gets their head chopped off by me!" Seeing the somewhat lazy bandits trailing behind him, Chief Guo was so furious he longed to draw his saber and hack them all to pieces.

In truth, nobody could have predicted that these so-called loyal retainers had originally been deeply devoted to their clans, only for those very clans to stupidly use them as bandits to maintain plausible deniability.

This had backfired completely. These retainers had fully immersed themselves in their bandit roles, and some had even forgotten who their true masters were.

After all, the desolate continent did not possess the numerous rules of Earth; most people here lacked any strong sense of clan or national honor, which meant their loyalty was often fleeting.

This was the drawback of lacking a comprehensive legal system, and the inherent flaw of a world where martial might reigned supreme—something that could not be changed overnight.

Meanwhile, inside the other mountain strongholds:

"Second brother, quickly gather a hundred or more men for me! A big fish has surfaced! Tell the brothers to get ready; other factions will be coming to contest this, so be prepared to take them out at any moment!"

"Dammit! Little bastards! The Guo family wants to monopolize this, but their greed is so ugly I won't stand for it! The other peaks are making their move too—everyone in the stronghold, get over here! We're going to ambush everyone right there! The Guo family might be strong, but our Gao family isn't pushovers!"

"Strategist, go fetch those items from our stronghold! Today, I am determined to get that batch of Primordial Stones! With those stones, our Bu family can even advance to a first-rate clan. Who would dare look down on us then?"

"Lads, stay sharp! I have a bad feeling about this. Let the other strongholds fight to the death first, and then we'll make our move to reap the fisherman's profit!"

"Someone will definitely try to play the fisherman this time, so let's be the jackal waiting behind! We'll bite through the throat of that damn fisherman, hahahaha!"

...

Just like that, wave after wave of men poured out from their respective strongholds, surging toward Chen Bo's location.

Some brazenly ran in groups of hundreds with tremendous momentum. Others moved in stealthy squads of barely a dozen, carrying strange clay jars containing God-knows-what kind of wicked concoctions. A few strolled leisurely, chatting and laughing as if those Primordial Stones were already within their grasp.

Even Chen Bo had no idea that his casual act of showing off would stir up such a massive commotion. If all these forces were combined, the headcount would easily exceed a thousand.

He was still feigning a brisk pace, though his actual speed was not particularly fast, entirely unaware that over a thousand bandits were already hot on his trail.

If he had known, Chen Bo would have dropped all pretenses and run as fast as his legs could carry him.

Over a thousand people! Even if they simply relied on sheer numbers to crush him, they could bloody well bury him alive!