They were momentarily stunned, and Ethan Brooks had already lowered his head again. “Then forget it.” After speaking, he seemed to be slipping back into deep thought!

“Wait!” The cultivator at the fifth level of Qi Dao thought Ethan Brooks was trying to scare them and use it as an excuse to back down. How could he let him get away with it? He immediately took off his sword and held it in his hand. “My sword is right here. As long as you have the ability to take it from me... I, Adam Wright, even if you kill me, it just means I’m not as skilled. I will never—”

“Clang!”

“Slash!”

A sharp sword instantly pierced through Adam Wright’s throat, cutting off the rest of his words.

“Killed.”

Volume One: Meteor Festival

Chapter Eight: The Capital of the King God

“Whoosh!”

The moment bright red blood spurted from the wound on the throat of the young man at the fifth level of Qi Dao, all the young talents sitting nearby, who had been waiting to watch the show, couldn’t help but stand up at the same time. The calm smiles that had been on their faces froze instantly.

“Someone’s been killed!”

“How bold! He actually dared to kill someone at a banquet personally hosted by His Majesty the Emperor!”

“Utter disregard for the law and the king!”

Shouts of rebuke erupted from the mouths of the many young onlookers nearby!

Originally, they thought the two sides would just exchange insults at most, or perhaps compete in cultivation, maybe humiliate each other a bit, but never expected that the usually silent Ethan Brooks would draw his sword and kill in an instant. Such a brazen act had crossed everyone’s bottom line.

Not only the onlookers, but even Ivy Foster and Lily Foster were shocked by Ethan Brooks’s sudden and reckless action. Although deep down, Lily Foster, as the young lady’s maid, felt that her mistress’s husband should act with such decisiveness, to kill a young man at the fifth level of Qi Dao at a banquet hosted by His Majesty the Emperor was tantamount to harming the emperor’s guest. Such behavior was simply ignoring the emperor’s authority!

If someone with ill intentions used this incident to stir up trouble, not only would Ethan Brooks face severe punishment, but even the Marquis of Wuwei’s residence, which had received and passed on the invitation to Ethan Brooks, would not escape responsibility!

“Ethan Brooks, you—”

“Oh no! Oh no, this is a disaster.”

Ethan Brooks withdrew his hand from the sword hilt, letting the man fall to the ground. Blood instantly flowed from the wound in his throat, staining the floor red.

“Ethan Brooks!!”

Seeing his friend killed right before his eyes by someone he hadn’t even taken seriously, James Clark’s eyes were almost spitting fire. “At such an important banquet, you actually dared to kill, dared to lay hands on His Majesty the Emperor’s guest. You’re dead, you’re dead. Not just you—your entire Marquis of Wuwei’s residence will pay a terrible price for your foolish actions today!”

Ethan Brooks, however, didn’t even spare him a glance. Instead, he waved to several guards who had rushed over to maintain order after hearing the commotion, pointed at the corpse and the blood on the ground, and said calmly, as if discussing something utterly ordinary, “Clean this up. Don’t let it spoil the mood.”

“This...” Seeing such a bloody incident occur at such an important banquet, the guards’ expressions grew grave. The leading guard, at the sixth level of Qi Dao, swept his gaze over everyone present and said in a deep voice, “What exactly happened just now? All of you are witnesses—please explain the situation in detail!”

“It was him, it was him!” James Clark immediately pointed at Ethan Brooks. “It was him! He actually dared to kill a guest at a banquet hosted by His Majesty the Emperor. This is a grave disrespect to His Majesty! Guards, arrest him at once and hand him over to the Department of Justice!”

The guards saw that everyone’s expressions were normal and knew that James Clark was telling the truth. The leading guard said in a deep voice to Ethan Brooks, “Sir, I’m afraid you really need to give a clear explanation for this matter, otherwise... we won’t be able to report to our superiors!”

“This gentleman... hmm, Adam Wright, said that even if I took a sword, I couldn’t kill him. He told me to try. I tried, and killed him.”

Ethan Brooks explained concisely, then returned to his seat and sat down.

Hearing this, Ivy Foster immediately understood the turning point and said, “That’s right. This gentleman Adam Wright himself said that as long as Ethan Brooks could take the sword from his hand and kill him, he would admit he was less skilled and would not pursue responsibility. Everyone present can testify to this.”

“Yes, he provoked first. The outcome was his own doing.”

James Clark recalled Adam Wright’s words just then. At the time, including himself, when they saw Ethan Brooks respond, they thought it was a chance to humiliate him, and let themselves be led by the nose. Now that the man was dead, he couldn’t find a solid reason to refute it.

At this moment, he vaguely felt as if he had fallen into a trap.

Ivy Foster, after all, was the daughter of General Xu, of noble status, not someone these people could compare to. The guard had to take her words seriously and looked at the others. “Everyone, is it as Miss Xu says?”

“Uh... this...”