Inside the back vault of Joyous-Gold Mountain’s summit palace, Sect Master Jin Wancai was sweating so hard his gold-coin robe stuck to his fat back like wet seaweed.
In front of him stood a tall, silent figure wrapped head-to-toe in midnight-black silk armor trimmed with dark gold thread. Two curved Rank 5 Peak daggers dripped with green scorpion-heart venom at the man’s waist, and his aura was as cold and sharp as a winter razor.
This was Gold-Shadow Seven—the #1 independent Rank 5 Peak assassin in the Central Continent, a man who had once slipped through three layers of sect shields to shave off a rogue Foundation Establishment elder’s eyebrows while he slept.
“My price for killing a Rank 5 kingdom lord is five million Spirit Stones paid up front,” Gold-Shadow Seven said in a voice like grinding iron plates. “Not one stone less. And I only take cash in a spatial pouch before I draw my blades.”
Sect Master Jin swallowed hard, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth with a silk handkerchief.
Yesterday morning, five million Spirit Stones would have been pocket change to him.
Today?
First, Pei Xuan’s Honest-Toad Registers had confiscated twenty-two million of his counterfeit stones. Then his idiot brokers had lost thirty-five million real Spirit Stones trying to short-sell Pei Xuan’s paper Grain-Notes. Then Elder Suan had panicked and abandoned forty million real Spirit Stones in Seven-Roads Town. And ten minutes ago, that cursed camel had stomped its hooves forty-eight times in Golden-Lotus…
