Heavenly Dao Engine
Chapter 924 - 924 0558 Extremely Empty_1

Chapter 924: Chapter 0558: Extremely Empty_1 Chapter 924: Chapter 0558: Extremely Empty_1 Chapter 0558: An Illusory Victory

Whether they admitted it or not, Long Yangyang and his group had developed a psychological barrier towards Xia Xiaoming. At this moment, as they saw Xia Xiaoming stride towards them, they all subconsciously shrank their necks, fearing that he would continue to attack them. They had basically lost all their combat strength, and if Xia Xiaoming decided to settle scores with them then, they wouldn’t have any power to resist and would be completely at Xia Xiaoming’s mercy.

What provided a bit of relief to Long Yangyang and the others was that Xia Xiaoming didn’t lay hands on them again. Xia Xiaoming wasn’t some sadist who got thrills from beating up those far weaker than him. He stepped right up to Long Yangyang and said, “You have two choices: One is for me to beat you to within an inch of your life, and then you agree to my terms. The other is to avoid physical pain and just listen to my terms now. My patience is limited. I’ll count to three, and you’ll tell me your choice.”

The moment Long Yangyang heard Xia Xiaoming mention a beating, he couldn’t endure it any longer and quickly said, “Sir, please stop, don’t hit us anymore. Our frail bodies wouldn’t survive another beating from you, we might not die but we’d surely be miserable. We’re willing to accept your conditions; we only ask that you spare us.”

Xia Xiaoming nodded in satisfaction and said, “Seeing as you’re somewhat aware of the current situation, I’ll just set two conditions. Each of you will give me fifty thousand middle-grade spirit stones as a token of your apology. If you can’t produce them, it means you’re insincere, and you can’t blame me for being ruthless then.”

Long Yangyang and his group felt a wrenching pain at the prospect; fifty thousand middle-grade spirit stones was by no means a small sum for them. Some of them might not even be able to scrape together that many spirit stones, but at this moment, who would dare to admit they didn’t have it? They could only grit their teeth and try to borrow some from their companions to deal with the emergency.

Xia Xiaoming didn’t care how Long Yangyang and his group managed to gather the middle-grade spirit stones. In fact, his original intent wasn’t just for fifty thousand middle-grade spirit stones; he wanted to shake them down for one hundred thousand each. But just as he was about to state his demand, Qi Tian quietly sent him a message and stopped him. He then changed his demand to fifty thousand, based on the numbers Qi Tian had ascertained through the sensory function of the Heavenly Dao Engine, surveying Long Yang Yang’s group spirit Qi. After handing over the spirit stones, they would still have some left, enough to avoid driving Long Yangyang and his group to despair, and preventing any desperate thoughts of a fight to the death. This was to lessen the trouble they might encounter.

After Long Yangyang and his group gathered the spirit stones, Xia Xiaoming snatched away the Storage Bag containing the spirit stones. He then tossed it to Qi Tian and said, “You distribute these spirit stones.” Afterwards, Xia Xiaoming held up a finger towards Long Yangyang and said, “There’s one more condition. Your bird isn’t bad, sell it to me.”

Long Yangyang’s face turned pale; he quickly used his hands to protect his spirit crow and pleaded, “Sir, that’s my lifeblood; I can’t give it to you no matter what, please propose another condition?”

A sinister smile appeared on Xia Xiaoming’s lips as he said, “Every man has only one lifeblood. Since it is your lifeblood, then it seems that the flesh between your legs isn’t. Since you can’t bear to part with your lifeblood, you might as well give me that piece of flesh instead; I could use it to feed dogs.”

Long Yangyang shuddered violently, never having expected Xia Xiaoming to make such a ghastly demand, especially the part about feeding his lifeblood to dogs. Merely thinking about such an image made him shiver for days.

“Now, I’ll ask you one last time. What’s your choice?” Xia Xiaoming stared at Long Yangyang and asked.

Long Yangyang gritted his teeth until they nearly shattered, but he was entirely out of options. He deeply felt the sense of powerlessness Zhang Ting must have felt when they had her cornered. Red-eyed, he said, “I am willing to hand over the spirit crow to you.”

“That’s more like it. You can always find another spirit crow in the future, but if you lose the bird on your body, no matter how many you find afterwards, it won’t come back.” Xia Xiaoming patted Long Yangyang on the shoulder and then reached out to grab the spirit crow.

Long Yangyang’s spirit crow had been hit by Xia Xiaoming before and held a grudge. It pecked at Xia Xiaoming’s hand as he reached for it, but it was as ineffective as a tickle to Xia Xiaoming, posing no harm.

With a swift grab, Xia Xiaoming captured the spirit crow in his hands and, holding it like a disobedient chick, headed towards Qi Tian.

Qi Tian had quickly distributed the middle-grade spirit stones Xia Xiaoming had just demanded. In total, they had taken three hundred and fifty thousand. He gave each of the three guest officials twenty thousand, a bit more to Xiang Bo, who received fifty thousand, and split the rest into three parts among himself, Gao Jinmei, and Xia Xiaoming. This allocation left the guest officials somewhat dissatisfied; after all, the ones who got the most spirit stones were not them or Xiang Bo, but Qi Tian and his group. They were all subordinates of the same master, so why should Qi Tian’s group get more?