561: Chapter 400 561: Chapter 400 Suddenly, the sound of horse hooves echoed through the village, and there was no shortage of noise.
Hearing this, the villagers trembled in fear.
Disregarding the food on the table, they sought places to hide.
In an instant, in a place where over a thousand people had gathered, only Yan Weiwei’s family and her entourage remained.
Having been away for many years, Yan Weiwei had no idea why the villagers were so terrified of the arrival signaled by the sound of horse hooves.
She also noticed that her family members were shaking with fear, wanting to hide, yet reluctant to involve their guests in their troubles.
“Immortal Master, you must run quickly, the mountain bandits have come.”
As these words were being spoken, an elderly man had his daughter-in-law take the children into hiding, feeling that they were old enough to die if it came to that, and he urged his daughter to hide as well.
His expression of fear didn’t seem feigned at all.
“Father, Mother, what’s going on?”
Seeing the villagers so afraid that they couldn’t even continue to eat, Yan Weiwei sensed that these weren’t just passersby, and perhaps it was the food here that had attracted the tyrant.
A few years away could mean great changes, and she was ignorant of the local affairs.
She had to eliminate the menace for the peaceful future of these villagers.
“My dear daughter, hurry and hide yourself.
Those mountain bandits are cultivators.
Somehow, two years ago, they appeared in the great mountains ten miles away and have settled there ever since.
For over two years they have pillaged many nearby villages, and they have killed all the merchants that passed through.”
Before Yan Weiwei could respond, Ye Tian, having heard this, knew that lives were at stake and thus, he asked:
“Elder Yan, have the official families not dealt with these bandits?”
Elder Yan shook his head, “These people know Immortal Law, and when surrounded by government troops, they use their Magic Artifacts or horses to escape.
Even if the soldiers burn down their hideouts, it doesn’t take long for them to rebuild.
These bandits are formidable, and not even the official troops can deal with them.”
Ye Tian frowned.
If even the forces of the official families couldn’t handle these men, then without punishment, their crimes would only become more severe.
Jiang Tang waved his hand, and his few hundred men flew up into the sky in an instant.
Jiang Tang had already used his Divine Sense to detect the bandits’ frantic approach, with government troops in hot pursuit.
It seemed the bandits had run afoul of the law, and now officials were closing in for a siege.
Ye Tian inquired further and understood that the bandits must either die or be captured that day.
The official families handled matters in their own way—unless the bandits were severely insubordinate and had to be killed on the spot, they preferred to capture them first and lock them up for trial.
Ye Tian instructed Yan Weiwei to protect her family members, and he too ascended into the sky.
The location where they were dining was full of people with mighty powers, any one of whom could protect the entire village with a simple spell.
That’s exactly what Jiang Tang did.
He formed a transparent magical barrier, enshrouding the entire mountain village within it.
The bandits arriving at the village entrance on horseback found that although there was a clear path ahead, they were unable to cross it.
Their horses charged straight into the barrier as if it were a physical wall.
The animals couldn’t stop in time, leaving them dizzy from the impact and tumbling to the ground.
The bandits on horseback, caught off-guard, fell as well.
Although they practiced Cultivation and didn’t get injured, they were nonetheless taken aback.
The horses behind crashed into those ahead, causing chaos.
While the animals were injured, the bandits were unscathed but greatly shocked.
It was only now that they realized they were facing an invisible wall.
They had never imagined encountering a barrier of Immortal Law in an ordinary village.
They too were practitioners of Cultivation Methods, but they couldn’t break through the barrier, realizing that the one who had cast it possessed abilities surpassing their own.
The bandits looked over the mountain village, remembering that they had once raided this place, taken its grain, and pillaged valuable possessions, including cattle, sheep, and chickens.
Of course, they had also abducted beautiful girls from this village, and any resistance was met with death.
This wasn’t limited to just this village; they had inflicted the same terrors on the neighboring ones.
Never had they expected to find an Immortal Master in this village.
If it had been any other time, they would have turned and fled at the realization, but now they were trapped between the powerful barrier ahead and pursuers behind.
“Big Brother, what do we do now?”
A bandit asked their leader, but the leader found they couldn’t get into the village, so they could only choose to turn back and fight with the official soldiers.
Just as they were trying to get the horses ready to make a bloody path back, the pursuers were already not far away.
“Quick, kill the bandits, don’t let them enter the village and harm the villagers.”
An official soldier in charge ordered his men to hurry up and capture the bandits, the swords in their hands shining intensely in the sunlight on horseback.
The bandits felt that they couldn’t escape this time and could only turn around and fight with the official soldiers.
The villagers hiding in the mountain village, especially those close to the village entrance, didn’t dare to go home, fearing that the bandits’ invasion this time would again result in robbery and murder.
Yet they had never expected that the bandits couldn’t enter the village and, moreover, they heard the sounds of official soldiers.
The more courageous ones stealthily peeked outside, only to see the bandits unable to enter the village for some reason, and some guessed that it must be the spells of the Immortal Masters brought back by that girl from the Yan Family.
Just now, they were too preoccupied with fear and had forgotten that the girl from the Yan Family was also a cultivator.
While the villagers were both alarmed and overjoyed, in the sunlight they saw several hundred Immortal Masters.
They were just small dots in the high sky, no wonder those bandits couldn’t see the immortals in their village.
Feeling protected by immortals, the bolder farmers began to watch on the road as the official soldiers captured the bandits, since neither the soldiers nor the bandits could enter the village.
Gradually, more people grew bolder, coming out from their hiding places to watch the excitement.
Seeing people not far away and yet being unable to enter the village, the bandits had no way out when the official soldiers were about to attack and could only rush forward to confront the soldiers.
This unlucky discovery, when they jumped up to attack the official soldiers, they found their bodies frozen in mid-air, unable to move.
The official soldiers were actually quite desperate; they knew the threat of the bandits and that capturing them this time could mean a slim chance of survival.
Unexpectedly, the bandits attempted to flee into the village for a massacre, fearing that any delay would result in even more deaths.
They also feared that these crazed bandits, driven mad by desperation, would take hostages and threaten them.
But as they neared the village entrance, they smelled the aroma of cooking meat.
The official soldiers had been lying in ambush at the foot of the mountain for a long time, for a day or two, just waiting for the bandits to come down or for something to lure them down.
Today, the bandits suddenly descended from the mountain, and although the soldiers were hidden in the dark, they still failed to catch them, which shows how formidable these bandits were.
As the official soldiers neared the village, they finally understood why the bandits had suddenly come down—it was the aroma of meat from the village that had lured them.
The official soldiers were expecting a fierce battle, but suddenly discovered that the bandits were frozen in mid-air, unable to move.
Many among the official soldiers were skilled in martial arts, and even those without martial arts possessed great physical strength, all for the sake of a meal.
Yet, this job required them to risk their lives, earning their pay through hard work.
Caught off guard, the leader of the official soldiers realized that the bandits weren’t laying a trap for them.
At his command, they began tying up the bandits with hemp ropes and manacles.
As things were coming to a close, the one in charge knew that a highly skilled person had helped them, and he looked up to see several hundred immortals descending from the sky.
The leader was also a cultivator, but his cultivation was only at the Qi Refinement Realm, just like those bandits who had low cultivation as well.
Could it be that these bandits were simply abusing their identities as cultivators to do evil because here was a mortal area?
“Many thanks to the immortals for their assistance.”
With hands clasped in salute, the leader expressed his gratitude to the several hundred immortals, men and women alike, who were still hovering in the sky without descending.
His subordinates followed suit with the same gesture.
They had braced themselves for a deadly struggle against the bandits today, never imagining such luck that without any use of combat power they were able to capture the bandits unharmed and spare their own lives.
Ye Tian landed among the hundreds of others, while the bandits clearly saw the young man whose single spell had immobilized them, knowing what their fate would be.
It seemed that all deeds eventually come with a price, and in this line of work, they always knew that one day it would be the end of them, yet they never expected it to come so soon, and over something as foolish as greed for food.