Xing Yi Quan Fa

A sudden explosion turned the bustling street where people had been watching the marathon into a bloody, chaotic mess in an instant.

Smoke, wailing, panic... Where the young man in the baseball cap carrying the bomb had stood, there was nothing left but a patch of charred remains. Blackened limbs and stark white bones lay scattered radially around it... Many people were completely stunned and collapsed to the ground, while even more screamed and fled in madness, shoving and trampling each other.

The air was thick with tension and terror.

Buzz...

As the piercing ringing in her ears gradually faded, Shizuku lowered the arm she had raised in front of herself.

"Are you okay?" Jing Yang asked beside her.

"Mm." Shizuku checked herself over.

Fortunately, she had often practiced Ken with Jing Yang these past days, so she had defended herself in time.

Even so, the explosion at such close range was terrifyingly powerful. The blazing heat wave, the violent shockwave, and the barrage of fragments and stones had badly damaged the sleeves of Shizuku's black sweater and her jeans. Her wounds were bloody, and some had even been scorched black by the heat.

"Just superficial wounds," she concluded, then looked at Jing Yang. "What about you? You don't look so good. Are you okay?"

"Help!"

"It hurts! Sob..."

"My leg! My leg is over there!"

"Someone help me..."

Panicked cries rang out all around them. Jing Yang's face was pale as he clutched his chest with one hand and surveyed the area, which had transformed into the scene of a terrorist attack in the blink of an eye.

Judging by the cold-yet-hot Death Qi pouring into his heart, the explosion had taken the lives of fifteen bystanders in an instant. Beyond that, several mutilated people lying amid the chaos were already on the verge of death and could die at any moment.

As lightning flashed through Jing Yang's mind, two more streams of cold-yet-hot Death Qi burrowed into his heart.

Jing Yang's heart pounded wildly, phantom pain surging through him. Instinctively, he felt that if a few more came—or even just one more—he would no longer be able to suppress his "transformation."

How old would his body be forcibly matured to this time?

Six? Ten? Twenty? Thirty?

A crying, shouting man crashed into him through the panicked crowd. Jing Yang steadied him, then casually stripped off his black trench coat.

Elsewhere, Dago and the others had been caught without time to defend themselves and were blasted away head-on by the explosion's heat wave. Fortunately, they were Nen Users after all. The Aura surrounding their bodies far exceeded that of ordinary people, and though they had suffered serious injuries, they were still breathing and had not died. Dago's injuries were somewhat lighter, and he was the only one still conscious. Looking at the chaos before him, he felt both bewildered and angry.

"Hey, are you okay?"

Slooe's face was slapped hard, the burning pain jolting him awake. When he focused his eyes, he saw that it was Kang Jae.

"I'm fine." Slooe was still shaken, his face slightly pale. Recalling what had happened before the explosion, the young man in the baseball cap seemed to have been targeting him. If Mr. Kang Jae had not stood in front of him, there was no way he could have survived.

A grenade with its pin pulled suddenly entered Slooe's field of vision. In that instant, his pupils contracted, his heart hammered, and he felt as though time had stopped.

Bloodshot veins stood out in Kang Jae's eyes as he bared his fangs. "Don't underestimate me!"

His body abruptly grew taller, his physique swelling several times over as he transformed into a humanoid tiger. He grabbed the grenade about to explode and pressed it tightly against his chest.

Boom!

The grenade detonated against his chest like a muffled cannon blast. Yet Kang Jae's hunched, embracing body did not budge in the slightest, as though nothing more than a breeze had swirled through his arms.

Kang Jae, like a muscular humanoid tiger, straightened up. Smoke drifted around him as he opened his hand with fury written across his face, dropping a pile of scorching grenade fragments.

Xing Yi Quan Fa · Enhancement Tiger Fist

Kang Jae's fighting techniques came as naturally as breathing. Through a unique martial art created by imitating the movements of different animals, he could unleash 100% of the power of other systems.

One restriction: each time he chose a martial art form, even if he canceled it immediately, he had to wait at least five minutes before switching to another form...

Tiger Fist possessed 100% of an Enhancer's power.

"There's more than one!" Slooe gritted his teeth.

Faint sirens sounded in the distance all around them. The scene was already so chaotic that it was impossible to distinguish ordinary civilians from the remaining terrorists mixed among them. Kang Jae had to stay close to protect Slooe and could not split his attention. At the same time, after entering Tiger Fist form, the effects of En were greatly weakened, making it difficult for him to immediately locate the other criminals hidden in the chaotic crowd.

If I control my strength a little, it should work.

Kang Jae made his decision by instinct. The humanoid tiger immediately let out a roar that shook the air.

ROAR!!!!!!

Under that terrifying sonic shockwave, the surrounding crowd fell in swathes like wheat flattened beneath immense pressure. Ordinary people were nearly instantly left dizzy and disoriented, their bodies thrown off balance and temporarily unable to move as they collapsed one after another...

The chaotic scene suddenly became "empty." Amid it, those people—some with savage expressions, others utterly blank-faced—who drew grenades, detonators, pistols, and similar objects from their clothes became especially conspicuous. It was not only Kang Jae who noticed them; Jing Yang and Shizuku, who had maintained Ken the entire time, immediately locked their eyes onto them as well.

However, the three reacted differently.

Kang Jae remained bound to his bodyguard duty and could not leave, but his claw-like hand dug a chunk of concrete out of the ground and hurled it with force.

Shizuku merely glanced at those people preparing to make a last stand and detonate something again, then turned back to look worriedly at Jing Yang's ashen face. Was he really okay?

Jing Yang did not know what he was thinking. Even one more stream of Death Qi and I probably won't be able to hold back the transformation... Yet his fingers had already curled, aiming at the heads of the terrorists in the crowd lying sprawled across the ground as they prepared to activate their final bombs. Several Nen bullets flew from his hand without hesitation, tearing invisible streaks through the air almost simultaneously. Bang bang bang bang! Four heads were instantly pierced through.

Bang! The remaining one was smashed apart by Kang Jae's chunk of concrete.

Five streams of cold-yet-hot Death Qi instantly surged into Jing Yang's heart, becoming the final straw upon his heart, which felt ready to explode.

Shizuku caught Jing Yang as he swayed on his feet.

Jing Yang opened his backpack and told the endlessly chirping Rock Sparrow and the two crows, "Listen to Shizuku's orders."

Then he draped the trench coat he had taken earlier over himself, held Shizuku, and said with the last of his conscious awareness, "Shizuku, take me away."

"Okay."

Shizuku truly seemed to have no intense emotional reaction. Upon hearing her boss's instruction, she directly gathered Jing Yang, wrapped in the trench coat, into her arms. Just as she was about to leave, she heard Slooe calling urgently from behind, "Are you okay? What happened to Jing Yang?"

"Is he injured?" Dago was carrying the other four civilian Hunters on his back. As the sirens drew closer and closer, Kang Jae returned to his original body and appearance. He frowned as well. "What happened? If he's injured, the ambulance should be here any moment."

Slooe had calmed down too. "That's right, Shizuku. Don't act rashly. If Jing Yang is hurt, he has to be taken to the hospital..."

"Don't block my way."

With Jing Yang wrapped in the trench coat in one arm, Shizuku conjured the vacuum cleaner Blobfish with the other.

Kang Jae was already in a foul mood. Seeing her strange behavior and her refusal to follow orders, he immediately flared up. "Hey! You—"

"I can suck up all the corpses here." Shizuku retained her usual vacant expression as she calmly said, "If you don't want things to become like that, don't stop me."

She was practically a female beast protecting her young! For no reason at all, Slooe, Dago, and the others all thought the same thing.

Shizuku did not care what they were thinking. She immediately vanished with Jing Yang in her arms. With her speed and the chaos in the surrounding streets, ordinary people could not see her movements at all. In a brief moment, Shizuku disappeared from Kang Jae and the others' sight, taking Jing Yang away without a trace...

Hopefully that old thief resumes updating and doesn't reveal Kang Jae's ability... prays