Commander Yan was considered a heavyweight figure in the Blue Smoke Island Domain. Never mind that he was merely the commander of the Blue Hawk Guard — in truth, there were very few people in the entire domain whose status and influence surpassed his. You could count them on one hand.
The fact that even Commander Yan couldn't provide much information only underscored how enigmatic this divine-path senior truly was.
According to the intelligence Commander Yan had shared, this divine-path expert had returned to the Blue Smoke Island Domain not long ago — within the past half-year, at most.
Doing the math, that placed his arrival right around the time Jiang Chen had gone back to the human territories.
That was why Jiang Chen had no recollection of any of this. If he had been in the Myriad Abyss Island when a divine-path powerhouse escaped from the Infinite Prison, there was no way he wouldn't have heard about it.
"The Blue Smoke Island Domain, City of Miracles — I've been there more than once. Your Blue Hawk Guard may have been a dominant force in the domain before, but you never engaged in such outrageous behavior. So tell me, is this brazen, unscrupulous conduct of yours connected to that divine-path expert? Did you really think that with a divine-path expert backing you, you could do whatever you pleased?"
If that was truly the case, the Blue Smoke Island Domain was nothing short of laughable. Even upstarts wouldn't be stupid enough to act that way.
City of Miracles was a place with enormous population turnover. People from every corner of the world passed through it — even figures from the Ten Great Divine Kingdoms might show up there at any time. The Blue Hawk Guard's high-profile, tyrannical manner of operation was essentially painting a target on themselves and making enemies everywhere they turned.
Commander Yan's expression faltered, a mix of dejection and frustration coloring his features.
It was clear that Jiang Chen's question had struck a nerve.
"What's the matter? You had the guts to do it, but not the guts to admit it?" Jiang Chen asked with a cold smile.
Bitterness saturated Commander Yan's gaze. "There's no point in hiding it from you anymore. All of this… it was that divine-path senior's demand. Ever since he arrived in the Blue Smoke Island Domain, His Majesty the Emperor has done everything he says without question. The senior declared that to establish a divine kingdom, one must amass a great fortune. And accumulating that kind of wealth through conventional means was simply impossible."
"A horse grows fat on night grass, and a man grows rich on windfall. So you resorted to this filthy method of gathering wealth?" Jiang Chen scoffed.
"We knew it was killing the goose that laid the golden eggs," Commander Yan sighed. "But that divine-path senior gave the order, and His Majesty had not the slightest courage to defy him."
"And what about you?" Jiang Chen asked with a faint smile.
Commander Yan froze, then let out a self-mocking laugh and shook his head. "No. I don't."
However, he immediately fixed Jiang Chen with a provocative stare and asked, "But do you?"
Jiang Chen curled his lip. "Just because you don't have the nerve doesn't mean no one else does."
Commander Yan sighed deeply. "You don't understand. You simply don't understand. The divine might of a divine-path expert is not something cultivators at our Celestial tier can possibly resist. A god's will simply cannot be defied."
"Tch!" Yan Qingsang snorted with undisguised contempt. "By that logic, if a god told you to go **** yourself, you'd just go **** yourself? You know full well this is wrong — a real man would rather die than suffer such humiliation. You're no good man, Yan. Drop the innocent act."
Commander Yan didn't bother refuting him. He merely shot Yan Qingsang a frigid glare.
"And who do you think you are? I may be a defeated foe of Young Master Jiang Chen, but I don't recall having any history with you. What gives you the right to shout at me?"
Yan Qingsang's eyes bulged with fury and he stepped forward to strike Commander Yan. But after a moment's thought, he had to admit the man had a point.