New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live-Chapter 1099: Inside The Pagoda

They waited for Liu Yan to change while everyone turned their back to him, trying to give him a modicum of privacy. But the fox didn’t care for it.

"You’ve got a good body. This breakthrough did you wonders, young man. You looked about to break when I first looked at you, after you crashed into the mountain," he commented, staring at Liu Yan like a doctor examining his patient.

This made Liu Yan uncomfortable, so he accelerated his changing and hurriedly put the disciple’s robes on, grumbling about how he didn’t want to wear them.

"I said I wasn’t joining your cult, old man. Did you have no other clothes available?"

"Be happy we had clothes that fit you at all, boy," Elder Bai growled at him.

But the master raised his hand to interrupt him.

"Your presence will no longer be necessary, Feng. I will deal with our guests alone now."

Elder Bai’s mouth dropped, and his eyes went wide.

"Master! You can’t! These people came here to cause trouble for you. Why would you I leave you alone with them?!" he fussed.

But he suddenly fell quiet when the celestial fox started glaring at him.

"Are you insinuating that I cannot handle a group of children a hundred times my juniors, inside my own pagoda?! Are you calling me weak, Bai Feng?!" he thundered, walking toward him decisively.

However, David stepped between them, glaring back at the man who looked like Gu Fang.

"We’ve wasted enough time. I don’t care how you discipline your subordinates, but it can wait until we leave."

He was getting impatient. Staying on this mountain, where mana was unavailable, made his skin crawl, especially since all his summons required mana nourishment. Even if he could summon them, the more mana he wasted in this place, the weaker he would get.

He didn’t want to stay here any longer than necessary.

"Stay out of this, death walker," Bai Feng growled behind him, but David turned around, his fist extended.

The movement was too quick for Bai Feng to react with anything more than a flimsily conjured barrier, which David’s hand went through with little effort, barely slowing down, before smashing into his cheek and sending him flying into the nearest wall.

"Fuck off, old man. My patience with your bravado is running thin. You are the weakest one in this room, yet keep acting like your word holds any value. Listen to your master and leave, or I’ll slit your throat and feed you to my undead army. Maybe you’ll last long enough to be a plaything for them."

Elder Bai pulled out of the wall as the crumbling structure reformed behind him and glared murderously at David.

"How dare you!"

He lowered his posture to charge forward, but with three hand signs from the celestial fox and a quick thrust of his palm, a door opened up behind the elder, and he was sent flying through it, the gate closing back up.

"I’ll deal with him appropriately later. I agree with you, Mr. Magnus. We’ve wasted enough time. Come."

He walked toward the staircase, everyone looking at him strangely, before realizing David was already following behind.

The rest of the group quickly followed behind, Alex walking faster to catch up to David.

"You okay, man? That was quite the threat you made. Maybe you need to chill out a bit?"

David scoffed, looking at him with a side-eye.

"Was it too much? Eh. Don’t care. It was the same thing last time, in your home. That old man acts like he is strong, but his strength is nothing but hot air. He was wasting our time, and I got annoyed.

"Plus, you’re one to talk. I’ve seen you treat some people a lot worse than that. Are you really telling ’me’ to chill out? This is who I am. It’s only out of character for you to snap. Not for me, hehe," he chuckled.

Alexander wanted to rebuke his statement, but David was right. Alex had been quick to snap for a while, which was indeed out of character for him.

It had started a while back, and he wasn’t sure whether to blame the demon part inside him or himself for letting his patience run thin for so long. But he really needed to fix it.

"All I’m saying is, maybe don’t threaten people that you’ll slit their throats in front of the people of our guild? That kind of phrase doesn’t breed trust, you know?" he replied with a shrug.

David snorted, looking at him with a mocking smile.

"Trust? I don’t need them to trust me. That’s what you are there for. I need to be strong and able to back every one of your actions. I was always the hammer in this equation, Alex. Let’s not forget that. You be the shield all you want; that’s not my role."

Alex pinched his lips, remembering David had never wanted to be the face of their guild or even their team outside of New Eden. Since day one, he had claimed he would be the knife in the shadows.

"Fine. You do you. But try to remember we have children with us. They don’t need to hear that kind of graphic shit. You want Violette and Jonathan to have nightmares about you?" he asked, trying to convince him to be more mindful.

David looked behind them, crossing gazes with Violette, and the girl smiled at him warmly. Looking at Jonathan, the kid seemed too busy looking at the pagoda’s architecture to notice his gaze, and he turned back toward Alex.

"I don’t think that’ll be an issue," he chuckled before stepping slightly faster to distance himself from the sermon.

Alex sighed, realizing his words had fallen on deaf ears. He slowed his steps, letting the others catch up to him, and resumed his gait next to Kary. freewebnσvel.cøm

"He didn’t listen?" she asked, knowing the gist of Alex’s conversation with David.

"When does he ever?" Alex replied with a chuckle.

Kary shrugged, smiling lovingly at Alexander.

"He’s defending us in his own way. I think the others see it like that, as well. It’s nothing to worry about for now. I’m more worried about what happened to Liu Yan at the moment. I don’t feel any mana coming from him..."

"Yeah, about that," Alex said, scratching the back of his head.

Even though everyone had been present while the tribulation was happening, the deafening thunderclaps had drowned out most of Alex’s and the fox’s conversation. So they were still in the dark about what had transpired.

"I think a conversation with him will be in order. But it’ll have to wait until after we deal with this Gu Fang mimic. Let’s just hope the worst is behind us..."