"Lord Dante... this is definitely the place."
One of the Stellar Order's delegates closed his eyes for a moment, then hurried to report to his leader, unable to hide his excitement. The flow of the world's life force that he could sense around this village was stronger than in any place he had ever known.
It even surpassed the "sacred lands" the Western Order had inherited, the secret source of its strength.
Under pressure from the public, the authorities had been forced to bring the delegation here. Marshal Zhang Xianyuan, standing tensely at the back, watched the camera that was still broadcasting live with a deep sense of unease.
"Thank you, Stephen..."
Dante smiled warmly as he thanked his subordinate. None of this would have been possible, after all, without millions of eyes on them.
Stephen bowed in delight, though a strange feeling lingered in him as he gazed out over the coast.
For some reason, he seemed to sense an even fiercer flow of energy in that direction.
In the end, he concluded that it was only his imagination. This one area alone already surpassed the Order's sacred lands. There was no way another place like it could exist in this age.
"As you can all see! By the will of the stars... we have found our salvation!"
Dante turned to the live camera and put on a broad smile. He swept a hand toward the land behind him and went on.
"With this sacred land, our Stellar Knights will grow stronger! And we'll surely be able to protect all of you from these vicious beasts!"
Dante's rousing words stirred up a huge wave of reactions. One of the officers watching the stream on his own communication device broke into a cold sweat at the flood of comments pouring in like a waterfall.
"Marshal... this is bad."
Zhang Xianyuan nodded, just as tense. He decided to walk over to Dante and speak bluntly.
"Reverend, we haven't agreed to hand this place over to you yet, have we?"
The Marshal's words left the whole area dead silent. Even Dante raised an eyebrow, hardly believing that Zhang Xianyuan would dare to say such a thing.
He cast a sidelong glance at the camera that was already capturing the scene, then answered with a practiced smile.
"By the will of the stars... please don't worry, Marshal. We'll have experts appraise the land at a fair price. You don't need to fear that we'd ask your country for land for nothing."
...Appraise it?
Appraise it in hell!
Zhang Xianyuan very nearly cursed on the spot. This was no longer land whose value could be measured by the ordinary standards of ordinary people.
And one look at that face was enough. That guy was certainly going to bring in a regular appraiser who was neither a cultivator nor a magic user!
"Stephen, go fetch Gaga. Have him give us a rough estimate."
Dante said it with a smile, then turned to the camera again and addressed the viewers.
"Don't worry, everyone. We'll compensate them fairly. I pledge the honor of the stars as my guarantee..."
Dante's words could easily have fooled the more naive viewers. Comments of praise flooded the screen in no time.
And that made one person angry.
"..."
"I'm sorry..."
"But we're not selling."
Zhang Xianyuan's tone turned fierce. He stared into the camera, with over a million viewers behind it, and narrowed his eyes.
This was not just something he had to do to protect the nation's treasure.
It was because the true owner of this land... was not here!
The mere thought of Bai Fanxian returning to find that the country had handed the land she had developed with her own hands over to some stranger gave him goosebumps.
She might well fly into a rage and turn her back on this country before anyone knew what was happening. Until now, she had agreed to help the authorities with many matters, but if the authorities could not even protect her "home" while she was away, he would not be the least bit surprised if she decided there was no longer any point in staying in this country!
With her power, any country in the world would welcome her with open arms.
They would not even care about her background!
So no matter what... this place had to be protected!
"Marshal... this is for the benefit of those in need..."
"For the benefit of those in need... or for the benefit of your Order?"
The stinging retort left Zhang Xianyuan's mouth the instant he decided to stop showing the other side any courtesy.
"...Marshal!"
Several of the authorities who had come along cautioned Zhang Xianyuan in low voices. Given the influence of the Stellar Faith, making enemies of them was not worth it in the slightest.
But.
"Think it over carefully, all of you... Are we struggling to deal with the disaster right now?"
"Well, that's..."
"You all know who we have to thank for that, don't you?"
Zhang Xianyuan's question caught many of them short. It was true that the appearance of demonic beasts was causing enormous damage across the world. Yet in this country, not once had their appearance led to a great tragedy.
That was because this country's special forces were extraordinarily strong!
"You know perfectly well that our strength was given to us by that person... and now you'd wrong that person just because of outsiders who've never done a single thing for any of you?"
"If anyone still thinks that way, let me tell you right here and now..."
"...I won't allow it!"
"..."
"..."
"...I won't allow it!"
"Neither will I!"
The instant Zhang Xianyuan finished speaking, the officers and soldiers working with the military all shouted at the top of their lungs, so loudly that the politicians and influential figures beside them flinched. Every one of them had dealt with Bai Fanxian and knew exactly who was responsible for the strength they had gained.
In less than a year since her arrival, the long-stalled progress of the cultivation world had shot forward as though strapped to a rocket. She had all but revolutionized alchemy, techniques, even treatment, and given this country everything!
Meanwhile, no one noticed that Marshal Zhang Xianyuan's body was glowing faintly while a flow of qi spread out around him. It was not a release of pressure, only a small amount of power scattering outward and mixing into the air.
The Marshal hid a smile beneath his stern face. The voices of support from his people and the officers around him grew steadily louder.
In the end, the Stellar Order's delegation was all but isolated, surrounded by a crowd turned against them!
"...Aren't you afraid of making an enemy of the public?"
Dante scoffed and fixed his gaze on Zhang Xianyuan. He looked coldly at the tide of public sentiment around him, which was no longer on his side. Although there were still supporters watching the live stream, that could not compare to what he felt from the living people standing right here.
"Enemies of the public?"
Zhang Xianyuan repeated the words in bewilderment, then a smile spread across his face.
"...Enemies of you people, more like, wouldn't you say?"
"..."
"...You'll regret this decision."
The words squeezed out between Dante's teeth with difficulty. Zhang Xianyuan noticed a faint vein bulging on the face of the man who had been putting on a saint's act all this time, and broke into a sly smile.
"Regret? ...Let me put it this way."
"You people wouldn't even qualify as guards of this village... so what would we have to regret about not handing our country's treasure over to you?"
"...!"
Such words were shocking to hear from a Marshal of the nation. Even his own subordinates had not expected him to show the Order no courtesy at all like this.
"Marshal... isn't that going a bit far, sir?"
"What? Well, you've got a point... Comparing this village's guards to weaklings like these really would be disrespectful to them."
"Sorry about that."
Zhang Xianyuan waved to a security officer standing not far away. The gesture made the man flinch and break out in a sweat, but all he could do was play along.
He was the same officer who had spoken with the Eastern King, Ma Fufeng, at the entrance the other day.
"...Hey. You."
One of Dante's followers, a man nearly two meters tall, pointed menacingly at the security officer who had been dragged into this out of nowhere. Beneath his spotless white robe, veins bulged across a body packed with muscle.
"Uh... is something the matter?"
The security officer gulped loudly as he walked closer.
Standing side by side, they differed in height by well over a head, so the officer had to tilt his head back to look up at the holy man who had called him over.
CRACK!?
A violent impact rang out the instant their eyes met. The giant's massive arm blazed with brilliant white light, then swung with full force into the face of the unprepared security officer, sending white smoke billowing across the whole area!
"Hmph... By the will of the stars... what a pity that the poor man must pay for something he never did..."
Dante's contemptuous smile spread across his face before he quickly changed his expression and turned to the camera that was still streaming live.
"I take no pleasure in this, but the honor of the Stellar Order can't be looked down upon..."
Thud!
But before he could say anything more, Dante felt the atmosphere around him shift.
Even the members of his entourage seemed to be staring at something they could hardly believe.
Liu Yianfei and Wu Jia, who were secretly watching from farther off, both sighed at the same time.
"...Told you this would get interesting."
"..."
In the end, Dante could not bear the uncertainty and glanced back over his shoulder. And there, a sight he had never dreamed of was unfolding.
"What the... heck is this?"
The security officer who should have collapsed in a heap after taking the attack of one of his Stellar Knights was still standing in the same spot.
The officer had raised one hand to catch the enormous fist, which was now stuck fast and could not move. The giant was trembling uncontrollably, because it felt as if he had just slammed into a slab of steel that did not so much as shake!
As for the security officer, he raised his other hand and scratched his face awkwardly, at a loss, which made Marshal Zhang Xianyuan burst out laughing.
"Um... Marshal, sir, what should I do about this situation?"
"..."