Overwhelming Strength Subdues All Techniques, Blood Spilled at the Ghost Market

The Ghost Market was not out in the open, but hidden near the entrance to the labyrinthine underground waterways in the south of the city. It never saw daylight year-round; only grease-burning torches crackled, illuminating greedy yet wary faces.

By the time Ji Ye arrived, the air was already thick with the stench of blood.

"Kill them! Since these bastards dared break the rules, don't let them walk out upright!"

Furious roars echoed through the narrow alleyways. More than a dozen Black Tiger Gang members dressed in black, red cloth bands tied around their arms, were crazily hacking at several constables in dark uniforms.

Zhao Ba Pi cowered at the very back, his face covered in blood. His whip had vanished long ago, and he was desperately fending off attacks with a broken blade whose edge had curled. Half of the seven or eight brothers originally with him had already fallen, while the rest were wounded. They were clearly about to collapse.

Ji Ye did not rush in. He stood in the shadows, his gaze coldly sweeping across the scene.

His eyes settled beside his feet—there lay a waist-high stone millstone, used by a Ghost Market tofu stall to press bean dregs. It weighed at least a hundred jin.

A cold curve lifted at the corner of Ji Ye's lips.

He sheathed his Wild Goose Feather Saber, bent down, and gripped the rim of the millstone with both hands.

His muscles suddenly tightened, and he slowly lifted the heavy millstone over his head.

"Who's that?" One of the Black Tiger Gang members on the outskirts noticed the light above him darken and instinctively looked up.

The next second, he saw the final sight of his life—a massive shadow screaming down upon him.

"Boom—!!!"

The millstone crashed into the densest part of the crowd like a cannonball. Amid bone-chilling cracks and screams, two gang members were smashed straight down, their tendons torn and bones broken as they crumpled to the ground.

The immense impact made the ground around them shudder three times, sending dust flying everywhere.

The once-noisy battlefield fell instantly silent.

Everyone turned in horror to stare at the figure slowly emerging from the shadows.

Ji Ye dusted off his hands, his right hand resting on his saber hilt as he walked forward at an unhurried pace.

"Who dares lay a hand on imperial constables?"

His voice was calm, yet after that earth-shaking blow, every word carried extraordinary weight.

"It's Ji Ye! Ji Ye is here!"

The despairing constables looked as though they had seen a savior. Zhao Ba Pi was so moved he nearly cried. "Brother Ji! Quick! Kill these scum!"

"Playing tricks!"

The Black Tiger Gang crowd parted, and a bald, brawny man with a face full of flesh stepped out. Bare-chested, his muscles knotted beneath bronze skin that bore the hue of someone steeped in medicinal liquid for years—the mark of one who had touched the threshold of the Skin Grinding Realm.

The Black Tiger Gang's Red Stick, known as Iron Pagoda.

Iron Pagoda looked at the millstone on the ground, his eyelid twitching, but his vicious expression quickly returned. So what if the boy was strong? An untrained brute was merely someone who needed a few more cuts.

"Kid, you've got some strength. Too bad killing isn't brick-moving."

Iron Pagoda gave a savage grin, wielding a thick-backed Ghost Head Saber in each hand, their edges flashing coldly beneath the torchlight. He kicked off the ground violently and charged forward like a heavy war chariot, his momentum terrifying.

"Twin Ghosts Pound the Gate!"

The two Ghost Head Sabers came from left and right, carrying shrieking gusts as they scissored toward Ji Ye's neck. This move sealed off both sides, forcing his opponent either to take it head-on or retreat.

The old Ji Ye could only have retreated, or gambled his life by trading a blow.

But now, he was no longer that gambler who could only fill the gap with his life.

Ji Ye stood still, unmoving. Only when the blades came within three chi of his face did his right hand suddenly move.

Ji Ye used the simplest, most brutal move of all—a horizontal sweep.

"Clang!"

The Wild Goose Feather Saber left its sheath in a streak of bleak, icy light. Yet instead of parrying the edges of the two Ghost Head Sabers, he exploited his longer blade's reach. With his terrifying arm span and explosive strength, he struck before the enemy's pincer closed, smashing the back of his saber hard against the side of the left Ghost Head Saber.

This was the essence of the Mountain Splitting Saber Technique—do not compete in moves, compete only in mechanics.

A strike to the side hit the weakest point in a blade's structure.

"Crack!"

A deafening metallic explosion rang out.

Empowered by Triple Brute Force, this blow carried the weight of a thousand jun. Iron Pagoda felt his left hand's tiger's mouth violently convulse, as though struck by a sledgehammer. The Ghost Head Saber forged of fine steel could not withstand such monstrous force and snapped cleanly in the middle!

Half the blade spun away and embedded itself deeply in a nearby wooden post.

Iron Pagoda's attack was instantly thrown into disarray, his center wide open, his eyes full of stunned disbelief.

"How is that possible..."

Was that even human strength?!

Ji Ye gave him no time to think. Having landed his strike, he moved as fluidly as drifting clouds and flowing water, using the momentum of his sweep to drive his body fiercely forward.

Since your skin is thick, I'll hit you until your organs shatter.

"Mountain Leaning Push!"

This was a Baji Quan technique. Ji Ye had watched videos of it in a gym in his previous life. Though his form was not standard, before absolute power, whether it was standard no longer mattered.

Ji Ye's shoulder crashed into Iron Pagoda's unguarded chest like a battering ram.

"Bang!"

A dull sound echoed—the heavy reverberation of flesh striking flesh.

Iron Pagoda's two-hundred-jin muscular body flew backward with both feet off the ground like a kite with its string cut. He spat out a mouthful of blood in midair, and his chest visibly caved inward.

"Crash!"

Iron Pagoda smashed over a sundries stall. Struggling to crawl up amid splintered wood and shattered clay jars, he could only vomit more bloody froth mixed with fragments of his organs.

One strike broke his saber; the second sent him flying.

The entire exchange had taken no more than a blink.

Ji Ye stood where he was, slowly drawing back his shoulder and rolling his slightly aching neck.

He had not suffered a single injury.

Even his clothes were not rumpled.

The gang members who had looked so vicious moments ago were now pale-faced, their weapons trembling faintly in their hands. Looking at that expressionless young man, they felt as though they were seeing a ferocious beast wearing human skin.

This was the crushing force of absolute power.

There was no need to trade lives, no need to shed blood. If one's strength was great enough and one's speed fast enough, so-called technique was as fragile as paper before absolute violence.

"Who else?"

Ji Ye coldly swept his gaze across the scene. Wherever his eyes went, the Black Tiger Gang members retreated, none daring to meet his gaze.

Even their strongest Red Stick had been swatted away like a fly. Going up against him would only mean death.

"Scram."

Ji Ye spat out a single word.

As though granted a pardon, those gang members did not even bother with Iron Pagoda on the ground. Dragging several injured companions, they scrambled and crawled into the depths of the dark alleyways.

The crisis was over.

Ji Ye slowly walked over to the still-twitching Iron Pagoda and looked down at him from above.

This man's skin truly was tough. An ordinary person would have died from that collision, yet he still clung to a thread of life. Was this the foundation of the Skin Grinding Realm?

Ji Ye fell into thought.

He bent down, picked up the broken half of the Ghost Head Saber, and casually tossed it beside Iron Pagoda.

"In your next life, remember to get a better saber."

With that, he turned and walked toward Zhao Ba Pi, who was huddled in the corner.

As Zhao Ba Pi watched Ji Ye approach, a complicated look flashed through his eyes—gratitude, fear, and a deep trace of wariness. Ji Ye's seamless string of movements just now had made him understand that from today onward, the sky over Group D had changed completely.

Ji Ye stopped before him, looked at his broken leg, and held out a hand.

"Chief, can you still walk?"

His tone remained respectful, but in those eyes was only unfathomable indifference.

Zhao Ba Pi tremblingly reached out and clasped Ji Ye's hand. That hand was dry, powerful, and cold.

"I... I can..."

Zhao Ba Pi said with a shudder.

Ji Ye pulled him to his feet in one motion and supported him over his shoulder.

"Brothers, take the wounded. We're heading back."

This time, no one looked to Zhao Ba Pi's expression. Every surviving constable instinctively straightened his back and answered in unison:

"Yes, Brother Ji!"

The wind and snow still raged, scattering the bloody stench from the alley, yet unable to disperse the wildfire in Ji Ye's eyes, which burned ever brighter.

He touched his faintly aching shoulder—the backlash from that collision had not been slight either.

I need to get hold of a Medicinal Bath Formula as soon as possible.

Ji Ye silently said to himself.