When Killing Intent Rises in Man, Heaven and Earth Overturn!

By the time he returned to the Martial Arts Hall, it was already dark.

Huo Yuanhong changed out of his bloodstained clothes and swallowed all the remaining Nourishing Supplements.

Then he sat quietly, feeling threads of strength emerge and replenish the nearly exhausted stamina within him.

Tiger in the Cage, Ape in the Mind was an immensely powerful Killing Technique. It could double one's strength and willpower in a short time, but the drain on one's stamina was equally severe.

In tonight's battle, he had used the Killing Technique twice, fighting for more than ten breaths in total. His entire body felt hollowed out, grievously depleted.

For someone else, such depletion would require at least half a month of medicinal nourishment to recover from.

But he was different!

His absorption of medicinal power was, like his training speed, hundreds of times faster!

In less than two hours, he went from barely able to walk to brimming with life and vigor once more, his body full of strength!

Even his injuries had almost completely healed.

"Dark Force practitioners are already people of status and standing. They wouldn't mingle with gangs..."

"As long as I deal with those few major gangs guarded by Strength-Unity practitioners, things should be quiet for a while..."

When the first streak of light appeared on the horizon, Huo Yuanhong left the Practice Room and came to the Martial Arts Hall's courtyard.

At that moment, the place was already packed. Children, women, and elderly people stood there silently, waiting.

There were roughly a hundred and twenty or thirty of them. Their eyes were all red, and some were weeping soundlessly.

No matter how grief-stricken they were, they did not dare make a sound, afraid of disturbing the masters resting in the Martial Arts Hall.

These people were the families of the deceased coachmen from the Carriage Firm. To prevent the gangs from targeting them at night, Huo Yuanhong had asked his senior sister Fang Yu to gather them all at the Martial Arts Hall.

The instructors of the Martial Arts Hall would not stand up for him, but if anyone dared commit violence within the hall, they would still act to preserve its dignity.

Thus, with only a handful of people left in the Chauffeur's Association, unable to protect the coachmen's families, the Divine Spear Martial Hall was the only safe place for them!

As a personal disciple of the Hall Master, he had the qualifications to bring in some elderly, weak, women, and children and have them squeeze into the Martial Arts Hall's guest rooms!

Though more than ten people had to crowd into a single room and the conditions were terrible, at least they were safe and had food and drink.

"Big Brother Huo, I want to practice martial arts. I want to avenge my father. Can I join the Martial Arts Hall too?"

When he saw Huo Yuanhong approach, a young boy asked hopefully.

The other youths nearby also looked over. Their still-childish eyes were filled with hope, yearning, and admiration.

Huo Yuanhong knew that look well.

Far too well.

It was exactly like the look he had once worn.

It was as if he saw...

One past version of himself after another, and something indescribable stirred in his heart.

Especially since these youths had just lost their fathers, the pillars of their households, leaving behind only widowed mothers and orphaned children...

"Junior Brother."

His senior sister Fang Yu tugged lightly on Huo Yuanhong's sleeve and shook her head at him.

Huo Yuanhong understood what his senior sister meant.

The Divine Spear Martial Hall could not possibly take in these coachmen's children.

He had been allowed to remain here because Li Shuxing had borne the pressure from the Martial Guild.

But these children were different. They had no Peak Expert to protect them. The Martial Guild would not turn a blind eye and let it pass; they would surely make trouble for them!

"So... they can't even practice martial arts and avenge themselves..."

Facing the hopeful gazes of the youths, Huo Yuanhong fell silent, unable to speak for a long time.

The Commoner Faction was forbidden from practicing martial arts. This was the greater scheme pushed forward by the noble families. Aside from the rare Peak Experts in the world, no one dared openly defy it!

If these youths—these youths who had lost their loved ones—were to practice martial arts openly and honorably, then unless...

He became a Peak Expert!

Unless he became a supreme master like his teacher, one who could sweep through even Peak Experts!

Only then would he have hope of sheltering these youths.

"The person behind the Blood Axe Society is most likely Wu Yankun of the Wu Family!"

Fang Yu handed over the information in her hand. It concerned Wu Yankun of the Wu Family, along with some speculation from Fang Family intelligence agents.

This eldest young master of the Wu Family was the legitimate eldest son, and also the publicly acknowledged first-in-line heir.

His father was the current head of the Wu Family, while his mother was the younger sister of another noble family's head. He could be called the core of the core lineage among noble families.

But when he was young, something went wrong in his martial training. His martial arts had stalled at Dark Force, his road ahead severed. He could only watch helplessly as others surpassed him, which made his temperament extreme and frenzied. He became the Wu Family's sharpest blade against outsiders, doing every sort of thing that earned hatred.

Wu Yankun knew that the Wu Family was using him as a blade, but he did not care. Instead, his actions grew ever more unhinged. With no hope left in martial arts, his greatest pursuit was to become a great contributor remembered by future generations of the Wu Family and the noble families alike—to leave his name in the annals of history!

For that, he would stop at nothing.

His instigation of the Blood Axe Society's assassination this time was most likely meant to provoke Li Shuxing into killing him outright!

And because of his special status, regardless of the truth, he was at least publicly the first-in-line heir of a noble family. If Li Shuxing bullied the young and forcibly killed him without evidence, it could easily make others feel that when the hare died, the fox grieved. It might even become the fuse that ignited the powder keg!

Simply put, he was a madman—a madman utterly crazed by his desire to leave his name in history! He longed for Li Shuxing to bully the young and kill him, setting off a conflict between the noble families and Li Shuxing!

"Killing him won't require Master to act."

"Uncle Liu has been too lonely, too alone..."

After reading it over and over, Huo Yuanhong committed the portrait to memory, then expressionlessly crumpled the information in his hand into a ball.

Then he returned to the Practice Room, picked up the Great Spear, and practiced spear strike after spear strike while visualizing the Buzhou Mountain Fundamental Diagram.

Silent, wordless.

Like a tiger trapped in a cage, silently gathering strength as it awaited its imminent eruption!

Baji Quan (Heart-Intent Harmony (429/600)

Baji Quan (Heart-Intent Harmony (430/600)

Baji Quan (Heart-Intent Harmony (431/600)

He began training before dawn. By the time evening arrived, the suppressed urge within Huo Yuanhong finally burst forth.

He thought of how he had endured as an apprentice for ten bitter years, only to be expelled by the Gentleman Sword and have his dream of practicing martial arts strangled—the suffocation, the despair...

He thought of how he had finally made something of himself, wanting his father and those who had once shown him kindness to live good lives, to watch him rise step by step to success and fame, becoming the person they were proudest of—only for a madman to strangle that dream once more. The oppression, the pain, the feeling of nearly going insane...

He thought of how Uncle Liu had feared death all his life, yet had risked everything to fight others to the death for him. But after he died, there was nothing left. The Chauffeur's Association he had struggled over for a lifetime was gone. Even Uncle Liu's own son looked down on him, believing he was merely a gang hanger-on with no prospects, someone who would sooner or later be beaten to death...

He thought of those orphaned children from the Carriage Firm, of the yearning in those youths' eyes when they looked at him, their desire to practice martial arts...

He thought of how, under the crushing pressure of the noble families' greater scheme, the Martial Arts Hall instructors had all retreated. Not one of them thought highly of him or was willing to step forward and kill the Blood Axe Society Leader for him...

"In this world, the noble families are the greatest evil..."

Huo Yuanhong raised his head, as though he saw the towering Buzhou Mountain in the Fundamental Diagram come crashing down! Heaven collapsed and earth split apart!

The urge in his heart finally erupted completely, transforming into Fist Intent:

When killing intent rises in man, heaven and earth overturn!

Baji Quan (Heart-Intent Harmony (600/600)