968 No More Pushovers

It was apparent that Yuan Ba had noticed the transgression of that young master, yet he was apparently not going to do a single thing about it. In fact, it almost felt as if he was encouraging this massacre. 

That was when he suddenly had a terrible thought. 'What if Yuan Ba was the one who had initiated this fight?!' It wasn't hard to come up with a reason for such a course of action. Deep down, Hao Pai knew what he had been doing and so far Yuan Ba had closed his eyes when they had ganged up on newcomers. 

Perhaps that was the reason why he refused to act now as well. There was no reason for the Tiger Lord to defend the Roaring Tigers if they could all be beaten down by this new challenger. It would be especially dishonourable since this particular challenger was daring and ruthless enough to take on the entirety of the Minor Tiger Clans. 

Initially, Hao Pai had believed that their numbers would be sufficient to defeat Jin's group. It was just that the challenger clan had the element of surprise by their side. That was why the Roaring Tiger Leader continued to coordinate the fight even though his attention was fixated at the master. 

But the more he multi-tasked while keeping a watchful eye on Jin, the more he felt that the young master himself was less of a threat compared to his bodyguards despite the initial assessment of his chi aura. Various cultivators had attempted to murder him, but the one defending him was the beautiful lady in the red dress. Her sword skills were swift and precise that many who tried to evade and still got hit with a fatal wound. 

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"He seems to think that you are an easy target." Yun teased as she could see the change in expression and the false confidence in his face.

"Do I have anything to fear from him, when he has to go through the Ultimate Bodyguard first?" Jin replied in a joking manner. He ignored the challenge for now and continued to observe the fights of his minions. It was surprised how certain monsters were able to fight together without much coordination involved. 

"There is still me, you know!" Lynn chimed in as she was assigned guard duty for Jin as well.

For Lynn, all she needs to do would be just picking her cellphone to summon an army of peggies. One order from the Penguin Queen and those Ninja Penguins would obliterate her enemies, assuming things turn for the worst. However, she too had been holding on to her chi at the ready to fire off any ninjutsu spells at the sign of danger coming towards her, but Jin kept emphasising for her not to worry too much.

"At the very least, this is a decent workout compared to sitting in the store all day. You have my thanks, Jin." Yun said as she flipped her hair to one side.

"You are taking way too easy. Don't you think they have any tricks under their sleeves?" Lynn questioned since she knew Jin was always the cautious one.

"Why? I have everyone on deck today. Besides, we have been through way worse, so this is basically just a show of power. This time I have to concur with the System, if I remain meek with my powers, people will just try to push us over. I'll have to thank the Tiger Lord, this is the perfect venue for us to establish how powerful we are!" Jin declared with confidence and somehow it was overheard by most of his minions. 

"Master you give us too much credit." Nubwort shared in the System Channel as he used his bare hands to crush a cultivator's skull. It was not an easy feat considering that the elite cultivator was struggling, and the Orc was surrounded by more enemies. Fortunately, he had the backing of Wyrstriker who kept them occupied while Nubwort enjoyed the luxury of painfully killing his enemy.

He was one of the few cultivators who had bad mouthed their master when they were taunting him. That was why Nubwort had marked this elite and was going the extra mile to give this guy a lecture to make sure that he would never sprout any nonsense like that ever again. 

"Besides, we need some workout after all that steamboat buffet we had last night." Drex chuckled as he killed another Minor Clan Leader, inciting more fear among the masses. Hao Pai did his best to keep them together, but the dwindling morale made it hard for him to sustain his efforts. The more he observed, the more he realised that Jin's bodyguards were intentionally ignoring him, not even attempting to come near him.

In an attempt to raise morale he went in personally and crossed swords with Dread Reaver, and yet the Knight of Lady Death merely pushed him away by tripping him and kicking him to the side, allowing his subordinates to aid and rescue him. 

Not long after, there was mass desertion from all the Minor Clan members after a series of bloodbath and the assassinations of their leaders. They could see that staying to fight spelt doom. Therefore retreating, while dishonourable, would at least have a chance of them staying alive, leaving Hao Pai and his remaining Roaring Tiger cultivators in the fray. 

Any of the Roaring Tigers who tried to do the same were actually the first to be gunned down by the young master's mages. Some were even pulled back to the garden by Sandy and Shu with their sand and plant magicks. They were then rounded up and thrown towards Hao Pai.

"To run away in the midst of a crowd despite taunting us, isn't that a little discourteous?" Jin shouted from afar. In reality, his minions were not letting those deserters run off that easily. While Jin was okay with not getting all the money, his top researcher begged to differ. There were many research topics that Ayse wanted to pursue, and there was no such thing as 'too much money' for a researcher. 

She wanted to know if she could use Lost Tech Engines to power Engineer Rei's Mechas designs and that would require a significant amount of investment into raw materials and other resources. 

So with the help of the other Avatar of Shaitans, they had already laid a plan to trap the cultivators who decided to ditch the fight and run beyond the gardens. This was to ensure that nobody would get out of the Tiger's territory. (For some reason, Flame Ripper had done his homework while waiting for Jin to come by checking out the surroundings. Perhaps he knew something like this was going to happen? Or was it just his habit?)

"I think this is a good idea to use on the Demon Rats too." Ayse concluded as she hovered above the garden walls and watched her plan unfold.