The Legendary Man

Chapter 1197 First Entry Into Upriver Village
Crap! I've been made!
Hayden's heart abruptly clenched. Springing to his feet, he sprinted toward the tree at the side.
Roar!
As a howl split the air, the tree where he was hiding previously was knocked down by a green and white wolf more than ten
meters long.
Stepping on the tree trunk that was as thick as a barrel, the green wolf stared at the man across from it coldly.
On its back sat a God Realm cultivator with tanned skin and his upper body bared.
Snap! Snap!
In the other two directions, vegetation broke. In the next heartbeat, another two gigantic wolves came into view.
Thus, three men and three wolves all surrounded Hayden in their midst.
In the sky, the demon bird continued circling and squawking relentlessly. In other words, envoys from all four directions blocked
off the latter's escape every which way.
“Outsider, we're envoys of Yannopolis! If you give up resistance now, we'll spare your life!” the shirtless envoy of Yannopolis
across from Hayden shouted.
Putting away the masking array in his hand, Hayden guffawed as he eyed the man.
“Do you think I'm a fool? I personally witnessed you destroying my companion's cultivation. Yet, you're now claiming that you
won't make a move against me? Are you taking me for a three-year-old kid?”

While saying that, he took a sniper rifle out of his storage ring with a flick of his hand.
Then, he continued, “You're simply courting death to make yourself such big targets!”
Aiming the sniper rifle in his hand at the gigantic demon bird in the sky, he pulled the trigger without hesitation.
“Cripple him!”
At almost the very instant he did so, the tree trunk across from him snapped and splintered. On top of it, the gigantic green wolf
blurred into an afterimage as it streaked toward him.
Blood sprayed in all directions.
Amidst all three wolves' agonized howls, Hayden swung his saber at the shirtless envoy.
Clang!
As their weapons collided, they zipped past each other.
The shirtless envoy stepped on the back of the green wolf hard, knocking it to the ground at a rapid speed from mid-air.
Drawing from that boost, his figure vaulted into the air again. He whirled around and pursued Hayden, who had broken free of
the encirclement.
“This is for you!”
Following Hayden's bellow, a black object flew toward the envoy's face.
Alarm bells rang within the envoy. Even as he sent the black object flying with the weapon in his hand, he swiftly landed and
backed away frantically.
Hayden had tossed out such a weapon back then. It exploded and injured six members of their team.

As such, he was inexorably terrified at the sight of the same tactic.
After he had landed, however, he discovered the absence of the expected explosion.
The object Hayden lobbed at him merely released a burst of thick and acrid smoke that could have all been blocked with a bit of
assistance from a spirit shield.
In the sky, the gigantic demon bird dived down into the forest with a shrill screech.
Before it had even landed, a figure jumped down before the three men.
Seeing the three green wolves whose necks had been severed, the young man on the demon bird wore an exceedingly grim
expression.
“That outsider planted a dozen fine and sharp magical items here beforehand, sir! All our green wolves died from them,” an
envoy reported, holding out a magical item that was even finer than a strand of hair to the young man.
At the sight of the blood droplets on the fine thread, a sneer bloomed on the young man's face.
“This outsider has a great many magical items that are pretty diversified. Contact Outer City and ask for backup. Also, send word
back and tell all the villages that if they dare conceal news of an outsider's presence and not report it, Outer City will send envoys
to carry out a large-scale cleansing upon discovery. Even mid-level villages will be held accountable.”
Although Upriver Village was an outlying village like Mountain Village and had to guard against attacks by waves of demon
beasts, it was much larger in size.
Not only was its area twice that of Mountain Village, but its population also exceeded that of the latter by about twenty thousand,
almost totaling forty thousand residents.
Considering its scale, it was even on par with some villages near Yannopolis, let alone those in the outlying areas.

For that reason, it naturally became a mid-level village on the fringes.
The two villages managed by Upriver Village was none other than Mountain Village and Oxen Village.
All this time, the bulk of the pressure on Mountain Village and Oxen Village came from Upriver Village's oppression.
Take Greyson and the others' forage into the wilderness to gather medicinal herbs this time, for example. It was initially a task
from Outer City to the Upriver, Mountain, and Oxen Villages.
However, after Upriver Village had received that order, they pushed the task onto Mountain Village and Oxen Village.
Worse still, the quantity Upriver Village demanded was far greater than what Yannopolis actually asked for.
Only by doing so would they be able to profit, gathering more resources for their village and improving their lives.
Unfortunately, if that situation were to persist, it would create a situation whereby the strong would always remain strong and vice
versa. It would make it impossible for a village like Mountain Village to turn the tide around.
Greyson stood on top of the mountain, gazing down at the village enshrouded in mist below with a rather bleak expression on his
face.
“That's Upriver Village, sirs.”
Throughout the journey, he had explained the general situation of Upriver Village to Jonathan and Seboxia.
As a mid-level village on the fringes, Upriver Village was no different from the towns in the outside world and was significantly
more prosperous than Mountain Village.
Its central area, especially, bustled with shops.
Residents from the dozens of villages nearby all visited Upriver Village to purchase supplies they needed or sell off whatever
they obtained from the mountains.

Right then, Jonathan asked Greyson for a set of native clothes made from animal skin.
After all, he was there on a rescue mission this time and had no desire to be targeted by those infernal envoys.
As for Seboxia, who had been appearing in his spiritual energy form, he tactfully chose to return to the coffin in Jonathan's elixir
field.
The reason for his choice was none other than the fact that he could not accept putting on a loincloth made from tiger skin.
Anyhow, that made no difference. No matter what Seboxia and Jonathan wore, those envoys from Outer City would never show
them any mercy when going up against each other for real.
Besides, Seboxia's spiritual energy form was still not as realistic as the demigod's they encountered previously, though it was
incredibly similar.
The fact that he had then returned to the coffin actually improved Jonathan's safety by far.
Jonathan checked his attire carefully before following Greyson down the mountain and into Upriver Village.
No sooner had they stepped into the village than he caught sight of a huge, luminous stone tablet.
Walking up to it, he stared at the shaky writing on the stone tablet blankly.
“What's written on there, Greyson? I can't read.”
Before Greyson could even answer that question, a burly middle-aged man over two meters tall at the side sneered, “I can tell
that you're a piece of trash from a low-level village at a single glance. No wonder your cultivation level is only the beginner phase
of the Grandmaster Realm!”