As soon as the group of remaining bandits saw Zhu Xuan rushing towards them like a reaper, they didn't even think of fighting; they turned tail and ran away like their life depended on it.

But how could they escape? He chased and killed every single one of them. Once he killed them, he didn't waste any time and rushed towards the direction of where the remaining bandits were staying with the kidnapped people.

He again changed his face to one of the bandit under Wolf claw, and ran towards them shouting frantically with a panicked voice "Everyone we should run. That demon killed our leader Wolf claw, and will be rushing here anytime. We should leave right now to our stronghold."

All the bandits got scared immediately. They couldn't believe their leader Wolf claw died just like that and was frantically getting ready to move out and asked the prisoners to get up and move.

But Zhu Xuan disguised as a bandit shouted "What are you idiots doing? Those people will only slow us down. We need to go now, just abandon them. We will take prisoners from some other place once we escaped."

The bandits realised what he said was true. They can find people in some other village anytime they want, but if they got slowed down because of these prisoners, they will lose their life. They immediately abandoned the prisoners and started moving fast towards the direction of their stronghold.

When Zhu Xuan confirmed they moved quite a distance away from the tied up men and women, he immediately started attacking the bandits. The bandits couldn't reacted at all, they were already scared about their leaders death and suddenly someone of their own side started attacking them made them muddle headed and not able to react at all. What followed after was a bloody massacre.

Zhu Xuan killed without hesitation, and stopped when only three were left alive. He wanted to interrogate these three to find the location of their stronghold. He knocked them out and carried them towards the place where the men and women of the village were abandoned.

When the young men and women, who were tied up, believed this is the end for them they saw the bloodied Zhu Xuan carrying three unconscious people. They were even more scared of what will happen to them next looking at the bloodied man.

Zhu Xuan untied the people one by one and told them patiently "I'm not going to harm you, don't be afraid. I passed through your village, learned about the bandits and promised to save you to your village head. Rest for now, and we will leave to the village once you have enough strength to travel."

But the women among the group and few young men were still scared that he is another evil person who will take them somewhere and kill them. He then slowly explained them in detail what happened in the village, about the villagers and how he killed all the bandits and came here to save them. It took him a while to calm them down; he can't blame them though they went through a lot in a single day. Once everyone calmed down, they walked back to the village.

He asked all them to settle down in a house which wasn't burnt yet and rest once they reached the village.

After that, he left to get the rest of the villagers. He reached the clearing where the middle aged village head from the village said they would be and found them. When he said he killed all the bandits and saved their people, they couldn't believe it. They all rushed to the village to find out the truth and found the young men and women resting.

They were beyond happy when they saw the youngsters of their village taken by bandits were back safe. They lost so many people today and they were also worried about the fate of these youngsters the bandits took with them. So when they found all of them are safe, they were filled with gratitude and everyone knelt in front of Zhu Xuan and said "Thank you Young master for saving our village and rescuing our people."

Zhu Xuan was embarrassed and told them "I only did what I thought was right, and I'm happy to help, so don't need to do this, please stand up. There are still many injured people need to be treated, and the village also needs to be rebuilt. Let's start working."

As he reminded them, they understood and got up to start rebuilding the village. Zhu Xuan also started helping them, against the protest of the villagers. He felt strangely satisfied in his heart when helping them doing simple things like building houses. They rebuilt enough houses by sunset for the surviving villagers to stay for the night. Then they made some food, and Zhu Xuan joined them and ate with them together.

Once the night fell and everyone went to sleep, he went to the place where he kept the unconscious bandits. He interrogated them separately and confirmed the location of the stronghold from the map he found in the possession of Wolf claw. After finding out all the details he could from the bandits, he killed them without hesitation.

The next morning he asked all the villagers to assemble in the centre of the village and gave them everything he found in the possession of the bandits, except Wolf claw's. Everything else is useless to him anyway, but it will help the villagers a lot, especially the techniques, mantra, activation solutions, resources he looted from the bandits.

He also taught them about the basics of how to use the activation solution, how to learn the techniques and mantras to progress in their cultivation.

After teaching them what all they should know, he bid farewell to the villagers. They were sad to see him leave, so he promised them that he will visit again when he has time and started his journey.

While he was travelling, he remembered what he learnt from the bandits the previous day. This place was a wide forest that spanned hundreds of kilometres and it contained more than fifty villages. The Blood claw bandit stronghold was hidden deep in the forest on a mountain, roughly two days travel from the village he stayed. The bandits pillaged from these villages every six months, and the only city the bandits knew that bordered this gigantic forest is Feng Wu city on the west end of the forest.

Zhu Xuan was shocked when he heard the information last night and finally realised he was not in the Lei Shu kingdom, and he wondered where did that light bulb Senior Long teleported him.

Zhu Xuan specifically thought about an important information he heard from the bandit yesterday, which confused him and he went into deep thoughts. The bandit said that they usually pillage the resources like food, money mainly and women for fun. But this time, their commander sent everyone out, including the leaders to catch young men and women from the villages and bring them to their stronghold.

He wondered "Why did the Blood claw wanted those young women and men? What are they trying to do? Something is definitely not right and I need to find out."

As he was thinking his thoughts through, he travelled towards the Blood claw bandit stronghold.

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Two days went by in a blink of an eye.

Zhu Xuan was sitting hiding in the bushes and observing the mountain in front of him and the guarded cave entrance in the middle of the mountain. The stronghold was inside the mountain, and the only way in and out is through the cave entrance.

On his way to the stronghold, he came across many bandit groups in the number of twenties and thirties who were transporting tied up young men and women with them towards the stronghold. After killing everyone except one or two and rescuing the men and women, he provided them the direction to nearby villages. He interrogated the bandits and found more details regarding the interior structure of the stronghold and the total number of bandits in the stronghold.

He found there was close to 1000 bandits in the stronghold, but was not sure how many are inside the stronghold now. He already killed more than 250 soldiers including one leader in these three days and he need to move fast since only four days left to complete the mission.

So when he reached the mountain near stronghold few hours back, he waited patiently to catch and interrogate a bandit who was inside the stronghold to find out about the details of the situation inside the stronghold.

Finally he came across two bandits who were sent to patrol the mountain area. He easily knocked them out and took them to interrogate them.

He relaxed after finding out the details from the bandits. Currently, most of the bandits returned and over 600 bandits are inside the stronghold. Only one leader among the remaining three leaders returned to the stronghold, Tiger claw. The other two are still on their way back and should reach the stronghold within two days according to the scouts the two groups sent in advance. He also found out about the route these two groups are taking from the patrol bandits.

Zhu Xuan decided he should kill at least one out of the two leaders and their group or both before they reach their stronghold. So, he thought of a plan how he should proceed in the next few days efficiently and created an operation plan in his mind.

He finally decided his plan, stood up and moved fast towards one of the roads leading towards the direction of one of the group led by Lion claw.