47 - Wrong decision

"I am not bloodthirsty. I only kill those who wish me harm, so as long as you help me, I'll let you go. If you don't attack me but don't help me, I'll just knock you out before I leave.

But be warned, if you attack me, nobody can save you." As he said this with his kind smile, it seemed to become a creepy smile of death while not changing at all.

As soon as he said this, the minds of the people in the group were thrown into turmoil on what to do.

They were well aware that he was incredibly strong, and with his display of disregard for their whole group just now, they had the absurd idea that he really was capable of beating them singlehandedly.

After a few moments of silence, the one who was holding the poster of Su Tao suddenly took out a sword and charged forward while yelling at the others.

"There's no way he can take this whole group. He's bluffing to intimidate us!!! Kill him!!!"

When he said this, a lot of the people in the group suddenly seemed to agree with him and launched towards Su Tao.

The person who was holding the poster was at the limit of the high tier, and there were a couple more high tiers in the group besides him. He believed that, no matter how much of a reputation Su Tao had, he couldn't be stronger than them with so little time.

However, just as the man was about to reach Su Tao, everyone felt the aura of lightning in the air as Su Tao charged straight into the man, his fist seemingly blazing with lightning.

At the same time, his watery inner energy, under the method from the misty ripple body skill, formed a bright blue barrier over Su Tao's skin. Of course, they couldn't see this and only saw the lightning fist.

Su Tao had experimented with the crackling fist skill and found that it was actually improperly ranked. It was actually a peak tier rank four skill, and it seemed to still be a bit incomplete.

It merely had to be improved a little bit by Su Tao to raise its grade by one whole tier.

As Su Tao's fist collided with the man, he was instantly thrown back ten feet with a burning hole on his robes that revealed some singed leather armor underneath.

This took everyone completely by surprise, but they didn't even have the time to react before Su Tao moved towards one of the other high tiers and punched him.

This high tier didn't have any armor and was thrown back twenty feet as he spewed blood out of his mouth.

By the time he stopped, the lightning inner energy had already wreaked havoc on his body. After a couple moments of struggle, he slumped over, dead.

It was at this moment that the other two high tiers finally had their attacks land on Su Tao.

In reality, he only wanted to test out his misty ripple body, which was the only reason he let them hit him.

But he was happy when he saw that their attacks sunk into the watery barrier and were absorbed into his body, where they were quickly either dispelled by his watery inner energy or dissolved by his black blood.

The attacks were almost completely ineffective, which made Su Tao lightly chuckle.

However, this chuckle sounded like the laugh of a god of death to those two high tiers who had just attacked him and failed to do any damage whatsoever.

He then used the crackling fist skill and made an extremely faint lightning gauntlet image on his hands.

Both his hands punched out and struck the two of them.

One of them died from this strike while the other one managed to survive by reacting and blocking with his arm, which broke in the process. However, he was still severely wounded and his whole side of his body was starting to go numb.

This sight struck fear into the hearts of the whole group, but then they noticed another thing.

During this whole thing, Su Tao had not had a single shift in his expression, and he was still bearing that warm and friendly smile on his face as he casually killed two high tiers and severely injured one in only one round of attacks.

At this moment, without hesitation, the man wearing leather armor tried to flee, but before he could get very far, an extremely unstable arrow with eight yellow lines going down the sides struck his back.

Unfortunately, the arrow disintegrated before it could strike the man, but Su Tao had expected this since it was just a test of the third level of the flowing bolt arrow skill.

Su Tao then shot another arrow towards the man with the poster using the second level, and it pierced through the thick leather armor and into his heart, killing him instantly.

As for the high tier who had managed to survive Su Tao's hit to his arm, Su Tao simply just shot him as well since he was also trying to escape.

All this was done so fast that the middle tiers in the group didn't even have time to decide what to do in this situation before seeing nearly all of the high tiers in their group being annihilated.

There was one high tier that had decided not to attack out of wariness, and it has obviously saved his life.

"They made the wrong choice. I hope you will make the right one so that I don't have to keep killing."

Su Tao once again interrupted their thoughts as he spoke calmly, as if nothing at all had happened.

They looked at him in horror and terror as they realized just how terrifying this seemingly harmless youth was.

After another moment passed, a girl in the group fell to her knees and pleaded. "Please don't kill me, I'll do whatever you want! Just please don't kill me!"

It was obvious that this girl had misunderstood Su Tao's words and took them as a threat rather than a warning.

Seeing this, Su Tao laughed lightly to himself before calling out, "There's no need for that. Get up. All you need to do is give me information."

But even after hearing this, the girl was still trembling on the ground. Seeing no response from her, Su Tao did nothing aside from look at the rest of the group.

"Tell me what happened in the Su family while I was gone, any important news, and other things I should know about. Tell me what bullshit the Elders pinned on me to try to bar me out of the city."

As soon as he said this, some of the group understood that he was clearing his name through them.

This gave them confidence that he wouldn't kill them, and as long as they just told him some information that he could have easily forced out of them instead, they could go free.

He was smart. If the Elders couldn't prove that it was him who killed those people and that he did it with malicious intent, then he would be completely free to walk right back into the city unobstructed.

Currently, they only had evidence that he had killed them, not evidence that he killed them from malicious intent.

If he let these people go, they would most likely spread the truth, and Su Tao could already tell which ones of them were most likely to just tell the Elders his position and spread lies, so he did not plan to let them go so easily.

These people likely wouldn't tell him any information anyway, but even if they did, he already had a plan to deal with it.

As expected, most of the people told him what he wanted to know, and they didn't leave anything out.

As for those who were planning to lie and were working for the Elders, Su Tao left them all for last.

"You three are all planning to lie to me, but I don't recommend that course of action."

He said this with a knowing smile that seemed extremely eerie to them. That was because they really were all planning to lie.

Seeing this, their minds wavered, wondering what he meant by that.

The next moment, he moved onto one of the three people. It was a tall woman with slightly pale skin.

Su Tao noticed that she did not waver almost at all when he said that, meaning that she was still planning to lie to him on something or another.

There were people sent by the Elders that were loyal to them in every group, and this woman was one of them, and she had been given a list of lies to say to Su Tao if he demanded information from them.

The other two people who were planning to lie were also from this group of people, but they didn't believe in the Elders as much as she did.

As she spoke to him, she told about some things that were true, but the moment she started to speak about one of the things that was a lie, Su Tao instantly took out his bow and aimed it at her head.

Then, without hesitation, he drew the bow and shot the arrow straight through her face and into her brain, killing her instantly.

Seeing this, everyone couldn't help but suck in a cold air of breath. It happened so fast that nobody could even react before she was dead.

"I told you that I didn't recommend lying to me. She made the wrong choice.

Now, I would like the two of you to tell me the plans that the Elders have, and if you lie like she did or leave anything out, you still meet the same fate as her."

Su Tao's smile had finally faded from his face, and it was replaced by a look of viciousness. All the warmth had vanished, and in its place was only endless nightmares.

This was Su Tao's demeanor. He would be kind until someone did something to upset him, and this woman lying to him had upset him. At least, that was what it looked like to others.

He then moved onto the next person that had the weaker will of the two of them and questioned him.

The man finally gave in and told what he knew of the Elders' plans.

As such, Su Tao let him go.

Seeing this, the will of the tougher of the two failed as he also gave in.

Now that everyone who was going to speak had spoken, Su Tao just casually walked around and stabbed some acupuncture points on the people who wouldn't talk to instantly knock them out.

After all, he had studied acupuncture points and pressure points on the body for self defense when he was younger, and he had experience of using it.

Then, without a word, Su Tao collected the valuables of the dead high tiers and vanished from their sights.

The remaining people of the group all had shock on their faces. They didn't even fully understand what exactly had just happened, but now they were free to go?

They instantly made their way back to the city, and news of their story instantly spread through the whole city, throwing a wrench into the Elders' plans.

They now had reason to believe that those people who died to him previously had either provoked him or he killed them in self defense.

...

In a beautiful house on top of a hill in the middle of the Su family, there sat a table, and at this table sat a man, and in this man's hand was a letter.

Suddenly, after reading the letter, the man slammed his fist down onto the table and broke it in half.

"GODDAMN IT!!!" He yelled out, his voice trembling with rage.