“How did you get them?” an Elder asked.
“I got them by killing evil demons. I knew of one place which was frequented by evil demons and waited for them there. I killed every evil demon that came there. However, it was somewhat risky as I have almost died a few times there!” explained Lanlan, her face filled with trepidation.
Looking at this little girl lying through her teeth without so much as blinking her eyes, Chen Xiang’s heart secretly palpitated. He realized Lanlan wasn’t a vegetarian.
“Where is it?” w.a.n.g Quan continued asking.
“There is a place called Spirit River, it’s a river full of Spirit Qi! I got this information from an evil demon,” stated Lanlan.
It was what Chen Xiang had told her. He didn’t expect that she would have to use it so soon. Chen Xiang felt that he was so stupid for treating Lanlan as a naive girl earlier.
w.a.n.g Quan returned the demon hearts to Lanlan, nodding. He and those Elders indeed knew of that Spirit River. They had also caught many evil demons there.
Next was w.a.n.g Quan’s eldest apprentice, Sun Xueren. There wasn’t an iota of expression on his face, like a dead man; cold and a man of few words. He didn’t look around, and his gait was also very stiff. However, the clothes he wore were the most magnificent of all w.a.n.g Quan’s apprentices. There were many sparkling rings on his fingers as well.
“Sun Xueren, eighty!” shouted w.a.n.g Quan. As it was his own apprentice, he and those Elders just casually glance one or two times, giving him a perfunctory check.
Seeing this, Lanlan and Chen Xiang secretly came to despise them. The same was true for Gu Dongchen and the other, those powerhouses on the sidelines; all of them could see that some kind of back-hand dealing was going on.
The next one had forty-three, such a number also gave Chen Xiang a fright. Fortunately, he had foresight; also, he was surprised by their strength. Surprisingly, they could obtain so many.
Lanlan was also feeling the same. On her own, Lanlan was only able to get twenty-eight. Had it not been for Chen Xiang giving her so many, maybe she would have ended up last.
Fifty, forty-eight, forty-five, fifty-two…
All of them had had forty or fifty, which gave Chen Xiang and Lanlan palpitations, as earlier, Chen Xiang was only planning to hand over fifty some demon heart, and Lanlan went a little further, just twenty-eight!
Meanwhile, all these people were interrogated as to how they acquired so many demon hearts.
“Mo Tian, eighty-three!” an elder shouted, shocked. A solemn look also appeared on w.a.n.g Quan’s face, there was still someone else who was able to acquire so many. Maybe he had killed w.a.n.g Quan’s apprentice.
w.a.n.g Quan and those elders carefully inspected those demon hearts. Soon, those Elders’ and w.a.n.g Quan’s countenance changed. Although they looked calm on the surface, w.a.n.g Quan’s eyes flickered with an undisguised fury.
“These demon hearts has your mark, right? Before your apprentices went in, you gave them fifty demon hearts to each! That’s right, I had killed your apprentice, I had no choice because he wanted to kill me. I did what a normal person would have done in my shoes,” said Mo Tian dismissively.
Mo Tian was far from being handsome. But at this moment, Chen Xiang felt admiration towards him; Mo Tian had actually admitted it, not to mention the fact that he had given a loud slap on Divine Martial Palace’s face.
“You…” w.a.n.g Quan was so infuriated that he was unable to utter anything. However, how could he dignify with a response as he sure had helped his apprentices in cheating, which had already been noticed by the powerhouses standing nearby.
“According to Elder Ding, it was permissible to have a conflict inside. I indeed killed your third apprentice and got fifty demon hearts from him. They can also be counted as mine! If you want to deal with me in accordance with violations, I will still admit it,” continued Mo Tian, he was not the slightest bit afraid of w.a.n.g Quan.
Chen Xiang reckoned that someone very powerful was surely backing up this Mo Tian.
“Humph!” Suppressing the anger in his heart, w.a.n.g Quan returned the demon heart back to Mo Tian; it was quite evident that he had scruples about the man backing Mo Tian.
Now, it was Chen Xiang turn. He was also at the center of attention. Chen Xiang only took out sixty demon hearts in order to be inconspicuous. This amount was just enough to put him in the fourth place, just behind Lanlan.
After w.a.n.g Quan and the others had completed their inspection, they still didn’t find their marks on them, which fairly astounded w.a.n.g Quan and the others. Mo Tian too knit his brows into a frown, puzzled. He thought that Chen Xiang would have attacked w.a.n.g Quan’s apprentices.
He had been able to get sixty demon hearts with his own strength; this was quite fearsome.
“How did you obtain them?” asked Elder Ding.
“Why are you questioning only me when I have obtained just sixty while Divine Martial Palace Lord’s elder apprentice had obtained eighty? Why didn’t you question him? Don’t you think you are rather shameless? You are openly cheating, in order to make sure that the Divine Martial Palace Lord’s four apprentices take the top four, you have given them a lot of demon hearts when they went in. And now that the three of them have died, you want to check and see who killed them, am I right? Anyone can see it as long as there is nothing wrong with their brain!” said Chen Xiang in a questioning manner.
“Chen Xiang, watch what you are saying! You must have evidence to back you up!” said w.a.n.g Quan coldly. As long as there was any evidence, the Divine Martial Palace could act all shameless as much as they want.
Shaking his head, Chen Xiang said, “I indeed got no evidence.”
“How did you get sixty demon hearts? Tell us in detail, it will help my Divine Martial Palace to understand how those evil demons move. We sent you in for compet.i.tion as well as for an investigation,” w.a.n.g Quan asked back; since there was no evidence, he had no qualms.
Which made other powerhouses secretly curse at his shamelessness.
“I arranged an illusion array and lured the evil demons with a large number of Hundred Beasts Dan,” stated Chen Xiang dismissively.
“Where did you arranged the illusion array?” w.a.n.g Quan was extremely suspicious. Although he didn’t find anything wrong with those demon hearts, he still had suspicions that Chen Xiang killed his apprentice because the demon hearts of his other apprentices had still not surfaced.
“It was a canyon full of black trees,” replied Chen Xiang.
“Oh, it’s called Dark Forest Canyon, it’s the only way through which you can get to the Spirit River. If you intercepting them there, it is impossible for Lanlan to get seventy-eight demon hearts! You are lying!” said w.a.n.g Quan with a cold smile on his lips.
Lanlan was taken aback for Chen Xiang had spoken the truth. She secretly cursed Chen Xiang for his stupidity; he was actually contradicting her lies.
Other powerhouses also secretly wondered. If Chen Xiang had killed one of w.a.n.g Quan’s apprentice, it would really gladden everyone’s heart.
Chen Xiang shook his head as he heaved a sigh, “It took me many days to arrange the illusion array. While I was arranging it, I sure did saw many evil demons pa.s.sing by, but I didn’t take any action. Furthermore, my illusion array has limited energy, it could only be used for a very short period of time. I was only able to complete it two days ago.”
“Just when the compet.i.tion was about to end, a very powerful evil demon with fifty or so subordinates entered the illusion array. At that time, I activated the illusion array, trapping those guys before killing them one by one. However, the leader of the evil demons was exceptionally strong. Even after all its energy was expended, my illusion array was only able to seriously injure it!”
“Finally, I had to fight with that guy. During our fight, the canyon was destroyed. If you don’t, believe me, you can go and check it out!”
At this time, Lanlan said, “When the rounds were just about to end, I indeed felt a lot of movements. There were dragon roars, the ground was shaking, it seems that it was caused by this guy.”