Chapter 70: Baiting?

Seeing that the top three were in agreement with Young Master Shirong, some of the other clans started to speak up as well. Out of the seventeen remaining Powers in the hall, seven were clearly in Shirong's favor and were willing to let go of the sacrifice that was made.

Of the remaining ten, four were in clear disagreement with Shirong's words and four were neutral. The final two were in the middle, but it seemed like all they wanted was to get compensated and were not fully displeased with Young master Shirong.

Shirong cupped his hands again and spoke, "Please, go ahead and ask me whatever you'd like gentlemen." 

"Young Master Shirong, we heard that a beast attacked you. While we heard the account from the guards, I still want to hear your firsthand experience." Spoke one of the two clan heads that were displeased with Shirong.

He recognized this man to be the clan head of the Ping clan. Shirong pretended to think for a few seconds before answering.

"The beast that we encountered was nothing I've ever seen or heard of before. I could not sense its cultivation base and neither could see its true appearance as it was hidden behind a veil of some kind that distorted its form. It was about the size of an elephant and was quite fast as well.

It didn't even take five minutes to wipe out half of our party. We had to use everything in our reseal to escape it. But even then, our misfortune didn't end. We all were greatly mistaken about the corrosiveness of the environment of the forbidden zone. In the end, only me, Ye Dai and Bei Wen were left alive.

The more we got towards the center, the stronger the corrosiveness of the invisible fumes and toxins got. When we were near the crater the deterioration of the defensive talismans was nearly a hundred times as strong as it was at the edge of the forbidden zone. When we were near the crater, the beast stopped chasing us as it seemed like even it did not dare to get closer to the center.

Our defensive talismans were depleting at an alarming rate of one per minute. We knew that we could not escape from the other side of the crater as the beast could very easily circle around and catch up to us, after all the circular area that the beast was reluctant to enter was of only about a hundred meters.

Seeing that we had no other choice, I used a trump card that my clan had given me to use in case of dire emergencies." Shirong explained and took a pause.

He then withdrew the Peak grade teleporting talisman that he had shown the guards before.

~Gasp~

Everyone in the room hissed with shock. While they had heard that Young Master had used a Peak Grade teleportation formation, they thought that there was a chance the guards were mistaken. But now they saw it with their own two eyes and even sensed the faint spatial fluctuations from it, they had no chance but to believe it.

Seeing this, the parties which were neutral till now were fully convinced and the two clans that merely wanted compensation were now rethinking about their aim. They were assessing whether it was worth to potentially offend the young Master of a clan that could give him a peak grade teleportation formation as a trump card.

A few seconds later they shook their heads and gave up on it. They knew that it was a guarantee that they would be compensated by Young Master Shirong, but what will be its after-effects? To them, it was simply more beneficial to have him in their favor.

"We agree with Young Master Shirong as well now." The two small clan heads declared their stance.

Now the only ones that were remaining were the two merchants and the other two small clan heads.

"Young Master Shirong while your word seem convincing, I still have some doubts about their authenticity." Spoke the clan head whose heir had died.

Shirong recognized him to be the head of Beilao clan. The heir that belonged to their clan was none other than the weakest member of the excursion party, the guy with the early stage core condensation realm cultivation base. 

"And why is that clan head Beilao?" Shirong asked in an amicable tone.

"You see," Clan Head Beilao said and withdrew something from his pocket. "This is the soul light bead that belonged to my son. I believe clan head Lu can see when its brightness died down."

Clean Head Lu closed his eyes for a moment and used his spirit sense to check the soul light bead. A moment later he opened his eyes and a frown appeared on his face.

"Seems like clan head Lu understood. The timeline does not match. If it was really as Young Master Shirong said it was then, why did the light of the bead go off later than it should have? This only means that my son died much later than you are claiming." Clan Head Beilao uttered with an accusing tone.

Shirong did not show any change in his expression, but inwardly he was surprised as well.

'How the hell did a small clan like them get a soul light bead?' Shirong thought.

Soul light beasts were a type of mid grade spirit tools whose sole function was to know when or if a person who had used the soul light bead died. The soul light bead would glow till the person was alive and would then go out if they died and would also record when they died.

"Clan head Beilao I'm extremely sorry, but it seems like I lost a great opportunity to save young Master Beilao," Shirong said in a sad tone. "Perhaps, young master Beilao suffered great injuries but was still able to survive the initial attack."

The people watched Shirong say this and felt a bit shocked while clan Head Beilao was gritting his teeth.

"But fear not, Young master Beilao is also the one who will bring everyone justice. You see, during the initial ambush we were able to exchange a few blows with the beast and during this, the beast got a little injury. This was caused by none other than young master Beilao who used the armor shearing talisman." Shirong said and then withdrew something from his ring, showing it to everyone.