"Winni Berent is neither deaf nor blind. If she wanted to step in, we wouldn't be sitting here right now," Zhang Yuanqing said calmly. "Ryo-chan, do you know what floor Brady Meade is on?"
"I do!" Asano Ryo nodded like a chick pecking at grain.
Zhang Yuanqing glanced down the corridor on both sides and saw numerous Heaven's Punishment members poking their heads out of the open-plan office on the same floor to watch the spectacle. Some whispered with grins on their faces, while others watched with playful gloating.
They seemed thoroughly accustomed to foreign spirit walkers being bullied at Heaven's Punishment, used to seeing them swallow their anger and suffer in silence.
Once the show was over, it would merely become after-hours dinner conversation.
Zhang Yuanqing's English listening comprehension wasn't great, but he could still catch snatches of conversation: "Well done." "Osmond was targeted in China too." "Heaven's Punishment isn't to be messed with." "Richardson? Brady's putting them in their place." "Poor bastards."
Withdrawing his gaze, he turned to Tianxia Guihuo and the others. "I'm not too familiar with office politics. Any suggestions? If not, I'll handle it my own way."
"Do as you please!" Guan Ya said.
"Just don't kill anyone," Zhao Chenghuang added, ever the voice of restraint.
Leaving his companions behind, Zhang Yuanqing walked up to the middle-aged man named Richardson and stopped before him. "Are you ready?"
The middle-aged man looked down his nose at him, furrowing his brows. "What?"
"Ready to let a Beast King get in close?"
Zhang Yuanqing threw a sudden punch, driving it hard into the man's lower abdomen. The blow made Richardson's eyes bulge, and he reflexively doubled over in agony.
Before the man could recover, Zhang Yuanqing followed up with three sharp jabs, then spun on his heel and drove an elbow squarely into the side of his face.
The middle-aged man's body tilted, and his head slammed into the corridor's white wall with a dull thud, leaving a shallow indentation in the rigid surface.
Limp and helpless, the man crumpled to the floor, knocked unconscious.
For a physically frail class like a Wind Mage, being closed down by a melee combatant without any preparation was essentially an instant defeat.
"Oh my god, what is he doing?"
"Who is this guy? Does he have any idea what he just did? He attacked a Senior Deacon!"
"This is a provocation—a direct insult to Heaven's Punishment! Arrest him!"
The onlookers nearby erupted into an uproar. This sudden turn of events was completely outside their expectations. Since when were the spirit walkers of the Five Elements Alliance so aggressive?
Assaulting a Senior Deacon right inside Heaven's Punishment's headquarters was something only the Demon Lord had dared to do in recent years.
Guan Ya took a step forward. Facing the crowd, she formed a sword gesture with two fingers and brought her arm slashing down.
A slender sword mark split the floor tiles, tracing a line from beneath her feet straight to the far end of the corridor. The display forced the Heaven's Punishment members to retreat in a hurry, leaving them no choice but to scurry off and find their own Deacons.
Under the incredulous stares of the two instigators, Zhang Yuanqing picked up the unconscious middle-aged man by his collar and turned to his teammates.
"Asano Ryo, lead the way!"
Brother Red Chicken grinned broadly, knocking out both Wind Mages with a punch apiece before jogging into the elevator after his companions.
Inside the elevator, Asano Ryo tremblingly pressed the button for the floor, her voice quivering: "We're... we're going to be disciplined! We're going to be punished..."
Meek and honest by nature, she had so far only mastered the Japanese tradition of deep bowing and had yet to grasp the art of insubordination. Seeing Yuanshi Tianzun resort to raw violence, she guessed his intentions and felt panic seize her chest.
Turning to look around at everyone, she found the entire group utterly calm—some even looked eager to throw down.
"Don't be nervous. Nothing's going to happen," Zhang Yuanqing said, patting her on the shoulder to reassure her. "One person breaking the rules gets punished, but when a whole group breaks them, the game changes. Heaven's Punishment needs high-level Saints, just as you said. If Winni Berent doesn't want to lose us, she'll definitely step in to protect us.
"And even if she doesn't, Heaven's Punishment would need the Five Elements Alliance's consent to discipline so many Saints at once; otherwise, it becomes a diplomatic incident. At a critical juncture like this, I bet Heaven's Punishment won't dare push so hard."
With that, he said in a resolute tone, "Ryo-chan, back in China, there's an old saying: strike one punch open, and a hundred punches won't follow!"
Asano Ryo fell silent. She suddenly remembered her guild leader's glorious record. This was a madman who had dared to battle peak Dominators and threatened to drag the Five Elements Alliance down with him in mutual destruction. Why would he ever fear a mere Brady?
As they spoke, the elevator chimed, and the doors slid open.
Zhang Yuanqing dragged the unconscious middle-aged man out of the car. With a single kick, he shattered the glass door and ignored the front desk's shouts and warnings, leading his team straight inside.
Many Extraordinary-stage practitioners in the office area rushed over at the commotion. Seeing Asano Ryo leading the way and the Five Elements Alliance practitioners wearing Heaven's Punishment badges, they all halted in their tracks to watch.
"Right up ahead, the one with Brady's nameplate!" Asano Ryo pointed at the third office door on the left and called out.
Zhang Yuanqing strode forward and launched a flying kick, shattering the entire glass door.
Beside the desk in the office, Brady had his eyes half-closed, leaning lazily back in his chair with an expression of sheer pleasure, letting out a contented sigh.
The sudden intrusion gave him a violent fright, startling the woman under the desk as well.
Brady snapped his eyes open and saw the young man who had kicked him earlier, now leading the Five Elements Alliance Saints into the room.
"Fuck!" He vaulted to his feet and hurriedly zipped up his pants. Just as he was about to launch into a tirade of curses, his gaze fell on Richardson, dangling like a dead dog from the young man's hand. His expression froze, replaced by utter disbelief.
After a few seconds of momentary panic, Brady burst into laughter, a thrill of triumphant malice surging through him. "You beat up Richardson? Beautiful. I have to say, you lot really are a bunch of muscle-brained yellow pigs—"
Before he could finish, a sharp, searing pain erupted in his abdomen. His breath hitched, his internal organs contorting in spasms.
With immense effort, he twisted his head to look. The one who had struck him was the sweet-looking girl with the round face and large eyes—though right now, she didn't look sweet at all.
"You..."
Gritting his teeth against the pain, Brady rapidly opened his inventory while conjuring a wind blade to cut down his attackers.
Yet as a fragile mage caught at close quarters by multiple melee and assassin classes, any hope of retaliation was doomed from the start.
Brother Red Chicken darted forward with lightning speed, planting a high kick into Brady's chin that shattered two front teeth.
Guan Ya followed up immediately with a kick of her own.
Zhang Yuanqing hurled Richardson like a sandbag. Master and servant collided with a sickening thud, contorting Brady's face in agony.
"Break him!" Zhang Yuanqing ordered.
No reminder was necessary. The battle-hardened Saints knew all too well never to give a Wind Mage the room to cast wind blades. They closed in immediately, unleashing a barrage of physical combos in rapid succession.
In less than five seconds, multiple bones throughout Brady's body were snapped, and he was beaten into unconsciousness.
From beginning to end, he didn't even have time to scream.
Outside the office, a crowd of Heaven's Punishment members clustered around the doorway, staring agape at the foreigners committing such brutal violence.
*Clang!*
Emma burst hurriedly into Director Winni's office. The seasoned assistant, who had weathered countless storms, wore a grim expression as she rushed inside and said breathlessly, "Director, those people from the Five Elements Alliance just beat Brady within an inch of his life. He's severely injured!"
Winni froze for a moment, and a rare smile crossed her cold, glamorous face. "Who led it?"
"Jumang!"
"Take them to the conference room." Winni rose, her high heels clicking against the floor as she walked toward the door. "I'm going to see Sean Meade."
Before long, news that Chief Executive Officer Sean Meade's nephew, Brady, had been beaten to a pulp by a bunch of foreigners spread like wildfire across Heaven's Punishment's internal chats and forums.
"Damn it, since when are the Five Elements Alliance bastards this arrogant? Are our colleagues in the New York branch a bunch of spineless wimps, just letting them run wild?"
"I was so pissed off I bought a plane ticket. I'm going to challenge those Five Elements Alliance practitioners to a duel."
"Those Five Elements Alliance folks probably think they're hot shit now. Heh, they have no idea what they're getting into."
"If Yuanshi Tianzun were acting this cocky, I'd bite my tongue. But who do these random nobodies think they are, throwing their weight around in our branch?"
Official practitioners from various Heaven's Punishment branches bristled with indignation, united in shared outrage.
Yet inside the New York branch, quite a few people were clapping and gloating.
"The Five Elements Alliance folks completely changed my mind. They rarely dare to take the initiative against us, and they beat up someone from the Meade family of all people."
"Shame they didn't finish Brady off. That guy is an absolute monster; he belongs in hell."
"I watched the surveillance footage. The kid who kicked the door down is a hero. I'd date him."
Brady had an awful reputation in New York. Leveraging his status and power, he had coerced and taken advantage of many female colleagues, earning the deep disdain of numerous official practitioners.
Inside the conference room, the Five Elements Alliance Saints sat around the table, sipping warm water.
They were temporarily "detained" here, awaiting Heaven's Punishment's disciplinary decision.
Yuan Ting, the only one who hadn't taken part in the assault, wore a troubled frown. "We're probably going to be deported. I haven't even had the chance to dig up any gossip in New York yet."
Because he wasn't a member of Return of the Dead, he was consciously and unconsciously kept at a distance. After all, Yuanshi Tianzun was currently operating under an alias, and there were certain things Yuan Ting couldn't be allowed to overhear.
When Zhang Yuanqing and the others had made their move, Yuan Ting had already slipped away because the office was too hot. Relying on his fluent foreign language skills and an endless reservoir of gossip, he had quickly hit it off with the female staff at Heaven's Punishment.
When Emma found him, he was sitting in the open-plan office munching on female colleagues' snacks while sharing exclusive gossip about Fu Qingyang and Yuanshi Tianzun.
A short while later, Assistant Emma pushed the door open, her face frosty. "Jumang, Director Winni wants to see you."
Zhang Yuanqing wasn't surprised in the slightest. He stood up and replied, "Understood."
He followed Emma out of the conference room, walked down the corridor, and entered Director Winni's office.
With her slightly wavy brown hair cascading over her shoulders, Director Winni wasn't sitting behind her luxurious desk. Instead, she had one leg crossed over the other, arms folded across her chest, watching Zhang Yuanqing expressionlessly as he stepped inside.
Emma quietly pulled the door shut and left.
Winni fixed a cold gaze on Jumang. "You're the real leader of the Five Elements Alliance support team, aren't you? I want to know your real ID and level. Don't bother denying it. If I couldn't even see through that much, someone would have kicked me out of the Chief Prosecutor's chair long ago."
"My Spirit Realm ID really is Jumang. As for my level, I am a Level 6 Beast King at the peak," Zhang Yuanqing answered frankly.
He had originally considered playing submissive before Winni, but representing the Second District meant that while he could engage in whatever antics he liked back home, he had to keep his spine straight on foreign soil.
Zhang Yuanqing wasn't surprised that Winni saw through his "identity"; in fact, it was entirely within his expectations.
He had deliberately chosen a high-profile approach to elevate the ceiling of their support team, laying the groundwork for hunting Level 6 Saints frequently in the future.
As for why the persona of "Jumang" had initially stayed in the background, it was merely to avoid drawing too much attention right off the bat. Even if he was "exposed," it didn't matter.
With layers of disguises cloaking him, he had no fear of anyone unmasking him as Yuanshi Tianzun. For one thing, his disguise technique was bolstered by an Illusion God item, so even a Star Official's astromancy couldn't penetrate it.
For another, Yuanshi Tianzun's return to the Spirit Realm was an established fact. No one would ever connect him with a dead man.
"Very honest!" Winni nodded slightly. "Why hide your standing?"
"We Chinese value keeping a low profile," Zhang Yuanqing remarked offhandedly.
The corner of Winni's mouth twitched. "The way you kicked that security door off its hinges wasn't low-profile in the least."
Her expression straightened, no longer dwelling on the question of his identity, and turned solemn. "I've discussed the matter with Chief Executive Sean. Under Heaven's Punishment law, severely injuring Brady warrants a minimum sentence of two years' imprisonment. As members of the Five Elements Alliance, you can be bailed out—though the bail itself..."
She paused, resting her clasped hands over her stomach. "Bail for all of you will cost one Dominator-grade item, followed by immediate deportation and a ten-year ban from entering the Free Confederation."
Zhang Yuanqing chuckled. "Let me guess: next you're going to say that thanks to your firm defense and persistence, Sean backed down?"
Winni was taken aback for a second, then broke into a faint smile. "You're a clever man. I like dealing with clever people."
*The Demon Lord was probably a real clever one too...* Zhang Yuanqing inwardly quipped, matching her smile with a knowing look.
Choosing the most drastic method to resolve the incident had three purposes: first, he refused to take insults lying down; second, he was confident Winni Berent would bail them out; and third, it served as a token of loyalty to this cold and glamorous prosecutor.
"I heard the Executive Department and the Prosecution Department are locked in fierce infighting?" Zhang Yuanqing probed. "Isn't the enemy right now supposed to be the evil camp?"
Winni Berent replied indifferently, "Sometimes, enemies come from within."
Zhang Yuanqing nodded silently. His question had been meant to test Winni's attitude toward him. If she answered, it meant she had accepted him and the team behind him.
If she brushed him off with platitudes, it would mean she didn't view them as her own people yet.
For now, Winni had provisionally accepted the Five Elements Alliance support squad. They wouldn't have to worry about being treated as cannon fodder in the near term.
"Enemies from within..." Zhang Yuanqing said, half enlightened and half feigning ignorance. "Now I see why tensions between the Executive Department and the Prosecution Department are so high."
The President had mentioned that spies from the Covenant of Freedom were embedded within Orderly organizations. Among the Lightning Mages, famous for their sense of justice, the number of spies would naturally be the lowest, and uncovering those spies was precisely the duty of the Prosecution Department.
With one side investigating and the other being investigated, it was easy to imagine how toxic their relationship had become.
At the mention of this, even the aloof Chief Prosecutor knitted her fine brows. "Your primary task will be assisting me in investigating internal spies within the organization. Occasionally, you'll also be dispatched on missions to hunt evil classes. But all of that can wait; you need to familiarize yourselves with the environment before you can do your jobs effectively.
"The reason I managed to secure your team from the Five Elements Alliance is because I emailed headquarters: muddy waters need a fresh current from the outside to clear them up.
"All right, you may leave."
***
Late at night!
The prolonged heavy breathing and the rhythmic creaking of the bed finally ceased. The two lovers, united after a long separation, had lingered in each other's embrace until the dead of night.
Zhang Yuanqing discarded the protection and wrapped his arms around his sweaty girlfriend. "I know a Dominator-level Knight. Sometime soon, I'll ask her to purge your oath so we won't have to worry about pregnancy anymore."
"Who said anything about getting pregnant?" Guan Ya said crossly. "Getting pregnant and having a baby takes a whole year. If I can't enter the Spirit Realm for an entire year, the team will leave me behind."
Zhang Yuanqing scoffed playfully. "You're the one who said you wanted to have my baby."
"That was then, this is now. Out of my way..." Guan Ya pushed him aside, snatched up her nightgown to cover herself, and carried her long, slender, bare legs into the bathroom.
Listening to the patter of running water, Zhang Yuanqing retrieved his spare phone, took out the Yata no Kagami to summon his clone, and had the clone take the phone and Star Teleport away from the New York Bank Building.
The clone came to a halt on the rooftop of a residential building on the edge of Manhattan, powered on the phone, and checked for missed calls and unread messages. To his disappointment, Catherine still hadn't replied.
*She sure is cautious...*
Zhang Yuanqing muttered in disappointment. Then, he opened the Hunter app, intending to accept a bounty mission.
The identity of Babel Grandmaster needed regular activity; leaving it inactive for too long might attract unwanted scrutiny from the Bounty Hunters Guild.
He scrolled through the Saint-tier bounty rankings. As he browsed, his gaze suddenly froze on a particular mission:
*#Hunt Down Five Elements Alliance Support Team Member—Jumang#*
*Mission Details: Jumang, Level 5 Beast King, member of the Five Elements Alliance support team. Resides in the New York Bank Headquarters Building. Will attend a gathering hosted by Heaven's Punishment tomorrow night at 7:00 PM.*
*Reward: Six million Confederation Dollars.*
*Someone put a hit on me?*
Zhang Yuanqing's first reaction was that Brady had posted the bounty out of spite!
On second thought, something felt off. Jumang had only just arrived in New York and had crossed paths with no one other than Brady so far. For an assassination contract on Jumang to appear on the Bounty Hunters Guild board immediately afterward seemed like an obvious setup.
It was practically framing Brady.
The bounty board was open to all hunters, and many spirit walkers within Heaven's Punishment were registered hunters who earned extra cash on the side.
Once those people saw the bounty, what would they think?
If Jumang really were assassinated, how would Heaven's Punishment react? How would the Five Elements Alliance react?
The blame would land squarely on Brady's shoulders, impossible to wash away.
Brady might be an arrogant, entitled rich kid, but he couldn't possibly be that stupid. And even if he were that foolish, the people around him and the faction backing him were certainly no fools.
*So someone deliberately put a bounty on Jumang to frame Brady?* Zhang Yuanqing furrowed his brows. After pondering for a few moments, the pieces fell into place.
There were two possibilities: first, an enemy of Brady's was seizing the opportunity to frame him; second, someone wanted to assassinate Jumang to pin it on Brady, driving a deeper wedge into Heaven's Punishment and escalating the conflict between the Prosecution Department and the Executive Department.
Chapter 679