22 Chapter 22 Trade Route Sabotage

Elyon sat in a comfortable carriage with his stage-2 cultivators friends. They took out their swords and rubbed them with a cloth. It was their habit to take care of their sword whenever they could. Well, almost every swordsman had this habit.

"Why do you think the sect is calling us back?"

"I'm not sure. The message is very secretive. We are probably preparing for war against other sects."

"Haha, finally. If we can defeat the other sect, the resources we have will increase. More of our brothers and sisters will improve their cultivation. We will be the first sect to have two resource points."

Resource point was a spiritual crystal mine for cultivators. Of course, not all resource points consisted of spiritual crystal mine. Sometimes, a place where high-spiritual plants could grow was also considered resource points. Each of these resource points was so valuable because a sect could never prosper without it.

"The sect master must have improved his strength. If not, he wouldn't wage war against any sect."

"That's true. But all this is still speculation. We don't know the real reason why the sect is calling us back."

"You're right. Let's talk about our travel. Where have you been going?"

"Ah, I've been exploring many ancient temples and monuments lately. They have some unique treasures inside, though traps are always annoying."

"That sword you have is from these ancient relics?"

The man showed his exquisite sword. The blade was carved with an intricate golden line that ran along the blade. The line was in the shape of a coiling dragon that opened its mouth near the tip of the sword.

"That is a fine sword you have."

"Thank you. It's not easy obtaining this. What about you. What have you been doing."

"I've been traveling to many kingdoms and empires. Their capitals are so big. You can find stage-4 cultivators there all the time. And the weapon they sell is better yet cheaper. A lot of runesmiths gathered in the capitals of these states."

It wasn't actually that easy to see stage-4 cultivators even in the capitals. This was because stage-4 cultivators could act as sect leaders. In the Royal Palace, they were considered as the right hand of the king.

"All of your travel sounds a lot more interesting than me. All I did was travel around the magic forest. Only timberwolf giants or horned ox beast is accompanying me."

"Brother, if you want to brag there are a lot more ways to do that. Timberwolf giants and horned ox beast is hard to kill. And they have spiritual essences that can increase our strength. The price for these essences is enough to buy a good sword."

After a good laugh, they turned to Elyon.

"What you've been doing Elyon. Come on tell us."

Elyon didn't want to tell them his story, but that would be unfair to his fellow sect members. "I've been going to the Death Land."

Their eyes widened.

"The Death Land in the north? Brother, have you lost your mind?"

Elyon sighed. "I know. But look what I got." He pulled his right sleeve and showed them an engraving on his hand. The engraving was messy, like a child scrambling a lump of coal on a wood. There was no clear pattern to it.

"What is that?"

Elyon smiled and was about to answer until the carriage stopped moving.

They looked out of the window and saw their coachman running away.

"Why is he running away. I promised him 5 gold coins. It's not every day I am being generous."

"Maybe he wanted to take a piss."

"Bahh mortals and their dirty organs. Their waste products are so smelly that you can smell them from kilometers away."

"You're right. I can't stand it either. Their toilets are a waste of space. I wonder if we cut off the organs that produce this waste, will they stop using the toilets?"

"We should try that later."

"I'm going to try it on the coachman after we arrived at the sect."

"Hey look there's a big caravan on our way."

The caravan consisted of hundred of carriages and wagons. They were pulled by magic bulls and seemed to be filled with a lot of supplies and people. There were so many carriages that some of them even went out of the route. Elyon had never seen such a huge group of norms before. Only when the cultivators go to war would they tell the norm to bring the supplies.

"Let's stop them. The caravan must have a lot of good food."

"Or some souvenirs. I forgot to buy one for the sisters. They will surely nag at me later."

"Let's just take the whole caravan and bring it back to the sect. Our junior brothers and sisters would be happy with that."

The cultivators merrily laughed again. Just as they were about to call the caravan to stop. A bullet shot passed through their carriage and shot one of them. He fell with a hole in his head.

"Sh*t! Enemy attacks!"

A barrage of bullets rained upon the carriage. The sound of gunfire was like a violent rain with storm and lightning.

The Black Wolves felt their blood boil. The force of the recoil shook their arms and hearts. It excited them. And together with their fellow Black Wolves beside them, they smiled as they fired at the carriage.

A few minutes later, after seeing no response from the carriage, Nesterin ordered his men to stop. The carriage was basically destroyed. The bulls that pulled it had died, and one of the wheels got wrecked, making the carriage tilt to one side.

He frowned. That was a little too easy. He had set up some people to pretend as coachmen and lure cultivators to the trade route. He knew the operation would succeed, but he couldn't believe that it was this easy.

"Nesterin, should we check inside?" Jharteel asked.

"Tell our men to surround the carriage, but keep the distance safe."

The Black Wolves get down from their carriage and did as ordered. Their fingers were ready on the triggers. Their hearts beat as they aimed.

"Should we send someone to check inside?"

"No. Just shoot the carriage again."

The Black Wolves surrounded the enemy carriage in a half arc. It was not fully surrounded, but Nesterin couldn't do that unless he wanted his men to shoot at each other.

When the men heard his command. They bombarded the carriage with bullets again. The bullets hit the wheel, and the carriage fell to its side.

The sound of wood being torn apart was drowned in the sound of gunfire.

"Stop!" Nesterin walked to the carriage. He opened the door and sprayed his rifle at random. He stopped when he saw the cultivators were already dead.

"What do you see?" Jharteel asked.

"Death cultivators." Nesterin smiled. "Apparently, it's not that hard to kill them."

His men laughed. There was some kind of truth in that statement. All they had to do was pull the trigger.

Nesterin looked around some more and told his men to collect the weapons. These guys must have a lot of stuff they got from their travel.

Then he felt something pricking his hand. It felt like a sharp hot blade cutting it. He looked at his hand and saw black lines moving around. He closed his hand and opened it again. It was still there.

Shaking his head, Nesterin ignored the carving in his hand. "Alright, there are a lot of trade routes that went to Ashbourne. We will split up into five groups. Each group will have 200 people. They will be led by Me, Jharteel, Thalanil, Gormon, and Zeno. Come on. Chop, chop. Get inside your carriage. I want a thousand death cultivators at the end of the day."

He looked at the messy carriage. "And get this carriage out the way. We don't want our enemy to be suspicious."

And so they began. The Black Wolves split up into five. They ambushed the carriage or wagons that the cultivators used to travel. Most of the carriages were owned by the Black Wolves. But there were some unfortunate norms who had their carriage destroyed. Of course, said norms were not harmed. Cultivators saw no harm in the norm. Even when they pointed their guns at them, they didn't even care.

Killing them became much easier because of that.

The news of norms ambushing cultivators was never spread. This was because Nesterin strictly scouted nearby carriages when he executed his operation. If there was one nearby, he would destroy or stop them depending on who rode the carriage.

"Hax told me that we can kill gods if we know everything about them. Looking at these clueless immortals makes me think that's actually true. If they know that the norms have powerful guns now, they wouldn't be so dumb to let us shoot at them."

"Did he really say we can kill gods?" Jharteel asked.

"Yeah, something like that."

Carriage after carriage and hundreds of cultivators fell to their death. They traveled far and wide, gaining tons of experience and equipment, but now they were dead all the same.

Nesterin peeked from behind the hill. There was a group of cultivators walking on the trade route. It was rare to see a cultivator going somewhere without forcing a norm to serve them.

"I think we're already running out of carriages," Jharteel said.

"That makes sense. Well, it doesn't make a difference. This hill is a good spot. We can train our long-range shooting from here too. And why are you still here? I told you to split up."

"Who would protect you if the cultivator pounced on you."

"I don't need protection from a boy. Go lead your team and attack them. There's quite a few of them down there."

Nesterin and Jharteel brought their team into position. They pointed their pistols and rifles before firing madly at the cultivators below.

A dozen cultivators fell in an instant. The other cultivators were confused but they reacted quickly. They used their swords to block and spun around as they cut the air. A few of them even had the chance to throw a few spare swords at them. Their attempts failed.

Against four hundred gunners, the cultivators were no matched.

Nesterin ran a hand to his hair. "Well, that was a good exercise."

"Sir." A scout approached him with a horse and get off. "There is a large group of cultivators in the south. They have no carriages, horse, or any animals that they use to travel."

"What is their weapons?"

"Only swords, sir."

"Seems like we have another practice target, boys. Let's go."

Jharteel smiled as he shook his head. The Black Wolves were not as weak as before now. A few weeks ago, they barely could kill a stage two cultivator. Now, they reaped their lives like wheat.

When the Black Wolves arrived near a valley. They were shocked to see a fully armored group of cultivators, marching beside the river between the mountains.

"The scouts didn't tell me about the armor."

"Who are they? Jharteel asked. "Are they really the member of the Nefarious Sword?"

"Those armors. I've seen them before. Around twenty years ago, when the Avatar Kingdom was in a war. But after the war, I never see any cultivators who wear that kind of armor again."

"So why do these people wear them?"

"That's the question, Jharteel. There are two possibilities. The kingdom is planning to wage war, or they will use the armor to fight against us."

"Can we pierce their armor?"

Nesterin turned silent for a moment. He wanted to be a good leader. He didn't want to disappoint Hax and the Black Wolves. For that, he needed to think this through. Every action had its consequences.

"Call our forces. We need to gather everyone for this operation."

"Should we prepare the 'goods' too?"

"Yes, use lots of them." Nesterin grinned.