Chapter 237: Naming It Like That? You'll Get Beaten Outside! (3/3)

"Are you certain you want to call it that?" The middle-aged official's mouth twitched as he stared at Fang Qi, looking at him as if he were an absolute fool. However, for the sake of the money, he chose to confirm one more time.

Defying Heaven was easy enough to comprehend, even if it was rather insolent. Then again, this city was hardly lacking in arrogant eccentrics, so that in itself was not particularly bizarre. The word "Guild" sounded like it carried the flavor of an alliance or society, which was also understandable. But still...

What in the world was an "Online Game"?!

Most importantly, there was that slogan inscribed right beneath it: "The Dragon Slaying Saber, Yours Upon A Click?! Premium Gear, Bursting in a Second?!"

Lines of sheer exasperation creased the man's forehead.

What kind of motherless, nonsensical garbage was this?!

Could a ridiculous faction like this even recruit a single soul?!

"I am certain," Fang Qi replied with absolute conviction.

The middle-aged man could not be bothered to care any further. After all, his only duty was to collect the coin. He harbored a deep sense of disdain for these two young men who looked as though the hair on their bodies had barely even grown. "Defying Heaven, is it? As long as you are not afraid of being beaten to death the moment you step outside, no one is going to stop you from choosing whatever name you please."

After taking the spirit crystals handed over by Fang Qi, the middle-aged man waited a moment before passing a token shaped like a massive blade—resembling the Dragon Slaying Saber—to Fang Qi, saying, "This is your temporary token. Come back in seven days to collect the official one. Congratulations, Your Excellency, the Defying Heaven Online Game Guild has been established!"

His voice was by no means quiet, and it instantly drew many glances from the surrounding crowd.

"Defying Heaven?"

"An Online Game Guild?"

"What sort of nonsense is that?!"

Most crucially, how did two such young lads possess the wealth to enter the Inner City, let alone the funds to establish their own faction?!

"Boss! This kid must be filthy rich!" a bald cultivator whispered to a cloaked figure in a black mantle who was just about to depart.

"And his face is entirely unfamiliar!" another cultivator added, clad in a dark robe that lent him an incredibly sinister aura. "Should we...?"

"Go on."

...

"Everyone, take a look!" Fang Qi was in an exceptionally grand mood as he stepped out of the Panjiao Manor, deciding to start up a live stream while he was at it.

Inside the main shop of Jiuhua City, the large screen revealed a magnificent structure behind Fang Qi, with a flood dragon winding around it. Before the building lay a garden-style courtyard, looking remarkably prestigious.

"Wow! Is that the new city where the branch shop is located?" Jiang Xiaoyue’s eyes shone like little stars. "It looks so beautiful! I want to go too!"

"The weather seems a bit gloomy, though," Nalan Mingxue noted via a bullet message. "Does it rain often there?"

"Not particularly," Fang Qi answered. "At least, it has not rained once during the few days I have been here."

"By the way, let me introduce you to the new employee of the branch!" Fang Qi waved at the thoroughly bewildered Zou Mo. "Little Mo, come over here!"

He casually pulled Zou Mo into the frame. "This is Little Mo, our branch employee."

"Boss... who are you talking to..." Zou Mo felt utterly mystified.

Only after Fang Qi explained the concepts of live streaming and the internet did the boy’s face fill with profound awe. "Boss, do you mean to say... that as we speak here, our words can be transmitted tens of thousands of miles away using standard magic?!"

With a countenance full of pleasant surprise and wonder, Zou Mo gasped, "Our shop is truly that incredible?!"

The crowd watched the grand screen, observing that beside Fang Qi stood a youth of about fourteen or fifteen years. His eyes were somewhat heavy with sleep, and his face still bore the innocence of adolescence. With slightly curly hair, his height of one-point-six meters was by no means short for an adolescent still growing, yet standing beside a cultivator like Fang Qi, he appeared considerably short.

"Boss, your new employee is so short!" Song Qingfeng laughed as he looked at the waving youth on the screen, comparing the boy's stature to his own.

"Is he not in the middle of a growth spurt?" Shopkeeper Fang led the young employee forward. "Let us go, let us head to the next spot! Having spent so much money, it would be a terrible waste if this shopkeeper does not explore every corner of this place!"

"Boss... the shop door has not been closed yet..." Zou Mo reminded him in a soft whisper at that moment.

"Ah—?! What the devil?!" Only then did Fang Qi recall this detail. Of course, he was not worried about the safety of his shop itself, but rather that the floor might be littered with corpses by the time he returned.

"Then let us head back to the shop first," Fang Qi said, waving to the companions watching the live stream. "I had intended to show you the scenery along the way in Banbian City today!"

"For instance, in this Inner City, it is nigh impossible to catch sight of any cultivator below the True Lake Realm!" Fang Qi remarked as he walked along the white-stone avenue, pointing toward the occasional cultivators passing by.

"So many cultivators above the True Lake Realm?!" An Huwei and the others looked at the screen in absolute astonishment.

"This resembles a city of cultivators far more than Yujing ever could!" Xue Daolv said, clicking his tongue as he observed the pedestrians moving to and fro on the streets.

"Look at the beast pulling that carriage over there... what does it look like..."

"It is a Flood Dragon!" Su Tianji exclaimed. "An entity at the late stage of the True Lake Realm at the very least, and there are two of them!"

"What a scandalous waste of natural resources! To use Flood Dragons to pull a carriage!"

"To think such a city existed!" Ye Songtao mused deeply. "Though it seems to be extremely far from our current location..."

"I want to go there and play so badly!" Jiang Xiaoyue stared resentfully at the two figures on the screen strolling comfortably down the wide street. "The boss only knows how to enjoy himself while leaving this young lady to tend the shop!"

...

Zou Mo did not possess small eyes by nature, but he had long maintained a bad habit of squinting, making him look as though he had never quite woken up. In truth, that was not the reason at all.

It was simply because opening his eyes fully always made the light feel piercingly bright, a phenomenon that had become particularly pronounced after spiritual energy manifested within his body.

Even so, his eyesight had always been exceptionally keen. "Boss, I think I saw something around the corner ahead..."

He blinked his eyes, certain he had just witnessed something slipping into the alley.

"What sort of thing?" Fang Qi cast a glance forward. He recalled walking past this area before he arrived; this section of the road was slightly secluded, and the corner ahead was even more isolated, with scarcely any foot traffic.

"Boss! There seems to be someone behind you! Right at the intersection you just walked past." At that moment, through the lens of the live stream, the sharp-eyed viewers also captured the anomaly in the footage.

"Who is it?" Fang Qi scanned his surroundings.

"It seems they have noticed us?"

"Let us just do it here!"

Following a rustling sound, a bald cultivator stepped out from behind with an air of arrogant nonchalance, accompanied by a pockmarked companion.

Immediately afterward, two figures emerged from the alleyway ahead. One was a lean, monkey-like cultivator, while the other was a sturdy, middle-aged man clad in a crimson robe.

"Little brat, you seem to possess quite a bit of coin?"

"The Defying Heaven Guild? You lot are quite arrogant!"

"Several thousand spirit crystals, wasted so carelessly by you. Why did you not come to offer them to us instead?!" the scrawny, monkey-like cultivator barked in a resentful tone, as though the spent coin had belonged to him all along.

"Got too much coin, do you?!" The bald cultivator stepped forward, slamming a fist against the wall beside Fang Qi. He sneered, "Splendid! Why not lend some to us to spend?"

"Stop wasting words on him, thrash him first!"

At this moment, the audience still watching the live stream was utterly dumbfounded.

"Good heavens! Is the boss about to be beaten?!"

"What do you mean beaten? This is a robbery!"

"To dare commit a robbery inside the city?!"

"Being robbed during a live stream...?"

"Can he win the fight? Was it not said that the people here possess quite high cultivation bases?"

"Oh heavens, Little Mo is about to be beaten!" A chorus of screams instantly erupted before the grand screen. "The boss is likely going to be beaten as well!"

"...Can we offer any assistance?" Jiang Xiaoyue asked in a weak, fragile voice.

"Assist from where?!" Su Tianji’s face was dark with fury. "Who even knows how far that place is from here!"

"Just now they mentioned something about a Defying Heaven Guild...? What on earth is that? Is that what provoked them?" Quite a few people exchanged bewildered glances.

.