Several dozen of you entered the forest. Before long, an encounter broke out. Having entered the woods earlier and being more familiar with the terrain, twenty bandits launched a sneak attack and killed two people on the spot.
You sensed something during their ambush. Your Force Qi blasted aside a flying dagger, its blade a vivid blue—not stained by your Force Qi, but coated in poison.
Thud, thud. The Third-rate Martial Artists struck by the throwing knives but not yet dead fell one after another within barely a dozen seconds. Two of the Second-rate Martial Artists also sat down cross-legged, circulating their Internal Force with all their might to expel the poison.
A poison capable of crippling a Third-rate Martial Artist in just over ten seconds was something you did not think you could withstand either. As for those two Second-rate Martial Artists, they were merely prolonging their own time.
Though the bandits' ambush succeeded and they took down seven people on your side first, they had never expected a First-rate Expert among the arrivals. With you and the other First-rate Martial Artist, the Heart-Observing Spear He Yi, taking action, nineteen of the twenty bandits were dead in less than a hundred breaths. Only one remained alive.
A Second-rate Martial Artist teammate, Fang Chi, volunteered to step forward, saying he knew a little about interrogation. You and He Yi decided to let him try.
Sure enough, in under three minutes, he had extracted a great deal of information about the bandit group. Just as you and He Yi were about to act, Fang Chi waved a hand. "This is false. Let me interrogate him again."
Sure enough, times two. After less than ten minutes of brutal torture, the surviving bandit abruptly changed his story and gave entirely different information. The first intelligence had been false; anyone who believed it would only fall into a trap the bandit group had prepared in advance.
"Hold on, this is a lie too. Let me interrogate him once more." Fang Chi cut in. You and He Yi exchanged a glance and decided to trust the professional's judgment.
Sure enough, times three. What cunning bandits—they had actually set up a double-layered trap! You and He Yi gnashed your teeth in fury.
During the third round of interrogation, the bandit did not change his story. He continued to insist on his second account.
Fang Chi sneered. "Your mouth is still quite hard, but I have plenty more ingenious tricks waiting for you!"
During the fourth round of interrogation, the bandit wept bitterly and begged you to kill him quickly and grant him a swift death.
Fang Chi's eyes gleamed. "Push him a little further, and he'll reveal the truth!"
Halfway through the fifth round of interrogation, the bandit's head lolled to one side. He stopped breathing.
Fang Chi: "..."
"I didn't expect him to be so weak. He revealed the truth after only the second round." Fang Chi gave an awkward dry laugh to cover his embarrassment.
You did not care about his dark little hobby and began advancing toward the bandits' lair.
Before long, you discovered that these bandits had moved here less than two months ago, yet they had already built the rough shape of a mountain stronghold—fences, wooden houses, a main hall...
They had not built it themselves. You saw a group of ragged men and women, worse off than beggars, mechanically constructing wooden structures, while several bandits watched over them nearby.
In one corner of the stronghold stood cages like pigpens. Directly above them hung a pile of mutilated corpses and severed heads...
You also noticed a half-built watchtower and thought it fortunate that you had arrived early. Otherwise, you would have been exposed ahead of time today.
After dealing with the dozen or so bandits patrolling outside the stronghold, the bandits inside were alerted as well. They poured out in a swarm, sixty or seventy of them spreading out, each one bristling with menace.
You were drawn into a chaotic melee. The bandits had more people, but fewer Second-rate Martial Artists—only six or seven—and only a single First-rate Martial Artist.
When the numbers were not too far apart, the proportion of experts became terrifyingly significant. The difficulty of this bandit extermination lay in this: the First-rate Martial Artist Big Boss had absurdly high attributes!
His blood and vitality surged like a raging tide, as though you were facing a colossal beast. Only by joining forces with He Yi could you withstand him and gain the upper hand.
You suspected that he had achieved Bone-Reinforcing Vital Energy. For a bandit around forty years old to possess such Martial Cultivation, he must have been a martial arts prodigy in his youth.
The First-rate Experts were deadlocked, but your side had twice as many Second-rate Martial Artists. While guarding against the bandits' poisoned weapons—the bandits only had a few poisoned weapons in total—you gradually gained the advantage.
The wind gradually shifted to your side. Seeing the situation before him growing increasingly dire, the Bandit Leader suddenly turned and fled, abandoning his many underlings.
You and He Yi failed to catch up immediately and could only turn back to slaughter the remaining bandits who still resisted stubbornly, one by one.
The bandit extermination did not end in perfection. The biggest one had slipped away, but East Forest City said: letting one escape was still impressive (thumbs-up.jpg).
A lone bandit could not amount to much, and he had lost his underlings as well. Surely he would soon leave East Forest City for somewhere else, so there was no need to worry.
Half a month later, you were practicing the Combat Technique you had won in the first grand competition, Heart-Piercing Strike, in your residence when you suddenly sensed chaos in the streets. Large numbers of patrol guards and soldiers took to the roads, and every household shut its doors tight.
You nearly thought the Wu Kingdom had invaded. After asking around, you learned that the City Lord had been cut in half with a single slash in his own residence, before everyone's eyes!
The strongest guards present had only been two Second-rate Martial Artists. Based on the later descriptions of the killer's appearance, he was the Bandit Leader whom the City Lord had said there was "no need to worry" about.
You: "..." Damn it!
The killer had not yet left the city. According to intelligence from all directions, he was still roaming through East Forest City. As a First-rate Martial Artist, he could vault over walls with a casual step and scale buildings with one great leap. Without someone of the same rank to suppress him, he was practically capable of anything within the city—until his stamina and Force Qi ran dry!
One man against a city!
You headed out as well, activating the Lightness Skill paired with the Flowing River Technique. With every step you took, pure blue motes of light spilled from beneath your feet, and your speed surged from the normal full speed of thirty meters per second for a First-rate Martial Artist to fifty meters per second in a straight line!
In two seconds, you flew across a hundred meters!
You headed straight for He Yi's residence. The bandit chief had dared to force his way into the City Lord's residence and kill him, which showed how fiercely vindictive he was. You feared you might be next.
From afar, you could already see the large courtyard He Yi had rented in the city. When you arrived within a few dozen meters, the gate opened.
The bandit chief emerged carrying He Yi's head and looked toward you as you came racing over.
You turned and ran, but after only a few breaths, you sensed that something was wrong. Whirling around, you saw only the bandit's back farther in the distance, continually moving away from you.
"His Force Qi is nearly depleted!" The moment you realized this, you immediately turned around and began pursuing the bandit chief.
One pursued while the other fled, and you crossed several major streets in succession. Along the way, you even had those soldiers try to stop the bandit chief, but the result was far from ideal.
"Useless soldiers, making me waste Force Qi shouting at you."
The bandit's horse—no, the bandit's Lightness Skill—was not as good as yours. So even though he was stronger than you, the distance between you did not widen. Instead, it steadily shrank.
Finally, in an affluent residential district, the bandit chief stopped atop the overhanging gable roof of a wealthy estate, facing you from afar with the light of a fight to the death in his eyes.
You knew that his Force Qi was only enough to support one final battle. If he kept running, then once you caught him, he would not even have the strength to fight back. This would be a battle to the death!
Could you win?