First Revealed

Big brother, something had to be wrong. Hurry up and get someone to stop him.

Watching the man draw a saber weighing over a hundred jin and walk to the center of the field, Xuan Ye felt his calves trembling. That was a real weapon! And judging from the ease with which he lifted that saber, a figure automatically surfaced in Xuan Ye's mind.

842 jin!

An Eighth Grade Knight Attendant!

This was fucking ridiculous! Was this really a Scavenger Squad? What kind of evil fate was this? Even if the Luo Luo Scavenger Squad was the city's top Scavenger Squad, there should only be two or three Senior Knight Attendants in the entire squad. How had he casually pointed at one?!

A Senior Knight Attendant had joined a Scavenger Squad. Not only did that show how formidable this Scavenger Squad was, it also showed the man's perseverance and ability!

This was a commoner powerhouse who had clawed his way to his current strength with scarce resources!

And that nickname—Jack the Dismemberer?

Did he have to sound so brutal?!

"Relax. You're someone the boss values, after all. I'll only teach you a small lesson. Don't worry about anything else."

Jack bared his teeth in a grim smile. His words eased Xuan Ye's nerves somewhat, but he still felt deeply miserable. I don't even want a small lesson...

What if that huge saber slipped? He was publicly known as a Sixth Grade Knight Attendant, after all. What if Jack got serious?

While Xuan Ye was still struggling inwardly, Luo Luoji seemed to notice the small commotion here. His burly figure left deep footprints in the sand as he walked toward the circle of spectators.

The people around them also respectfully made way for their leader.

"Oh? The kid has quite the spirit of challenge."

Luo Luoji's arrival secretly delighted Xuan Ye. He was about to ask him to stop this absurd duel when Luo Luoji stabbed him in the back instead.

"Don't worry. With me here, you can both go all out. I won't let either of you die. Young people really do need some tempering, and Jack's methods are quite suitable for teaching someone a lesson."

The teasing look on his bearded face made it seem as though he wanted nothing more than chaos.

Go all out my ass!

Cursing inwardly, Xuan Ye could only grit his teeth and pick up the Wooden Sword. It seemed a beating was unavoidable. He had taken up the Wooden Sword to pressure his opponent, as if saying, Look, I'm using a wooden sword. Are you really going to use a real weapon?

Xuan Ye could easily tell the difference between being hit by wood and being slashed by a real blade.

"Heh, pretty clever. You know there's little difference whether you use a real sword or a wooden one. Doesn't matter. I'll watch my strength."

Even with Xuan Ye holding a Wooden Sword, Jack showed no intention of giving up his heavy saber.

Face? Dignity? Honor? The instant they had joined a Scavenger Squad to pick through scraps, they had abandoned all such things. For people who struggled at the bottom, every battle had to be fought with everything they had. The slightest carelessness could bring defeat—or death!

Having cultivated from an ordinary commoner to his current strength, Jack had experienced too many life-and-death situations. He had also seen too many tragedies caused by people failing to go all out!

Only by making himself accustomed to giving everything at every moment could he maximize his chances of improvement. As a commoner, he had to treasure every shred of opportunity!

So even in an ordinary sparring session meant to teach someone a lesson, Jack had no intention of relaxing in the slightest!

"I won't give you a chance to raise your sword and block."

Jack angled his saber thirty degrees toward Xuan Ye. In an instant, his face became calm and still, as though all emotion had been drawn back into a placid, unruffled state.

A bloody, savage aura rushed toward him, making Xuan Ye's expression grow even uglier. It was as though a blood-soaked butcher stood before him.

Although Luo Luoji had pounded his chest and guaranteed that nothing would happen, having his life entirely in someone else's hands felt extremely unpleasant.

Damn it, I'm doing it. Things can't get any worse anyway!

Frantically searching through the memories and information left by this body's father regarding the Eyes of Lawbreaking, along with their control techniques, Xuan Ye awkwardly began to use them.

That was right. Habits of consciousness could not be trained in a short time. Although he possessed images and techniques from the original owner's practice, without sufficient time to train, they were little more than decorations!

His physical qualities of strength and speed were even less likely to change immediately. The only thing he could use to reduce the damage and evade or block was the Bloodline Power that had been brainwashed into being praised to the heavens!

To be honest, the fleeting sensation of Bloodline awakening when he had first woken up had been absolutely awful. Even now, the thought of activating it himself left a shadow in his heart. Still, he had some control techniques, and Bloodline Power was not a power meant for killing. Nothing too bad should happen, right?

He then closed his eyes and focused all his attention on them. To everyone else, the sight was unbelievably arrogant. If he were a great expert guiding a junior, then with sufficient strength, it would naturally look impressive. But he had just been thoroughly beaten by Gypsy, a lower-ranked Knight Attendant, and now he was doing this in front of Jack, a Senior Attendant. That was simply courting death. Even if he had given up, he should not have done it like this.

"Did that guy close his eyes because he's scared?"

"Pfft. I thought he was brave, but it seems I misjudged him."

"Sigh, young people nowadays are too impatient. They don't know how to keep their feet on the ground."

"Yeah. His talent is clearly far beyond ours, yet he wastes it like this. It really leaves a bad taste in my mouth."

"..."

The scavengers watching nearby began discussing it among themselves. Even Luo Luoji found it rather amusing. This kid really knew how to put on a show.

"Since you won't attack, I won't hold back either."

As a Senior Knight Attendant and a seasoned senior, Jack held a real weapon while his opponent had closed his eyes. Yet he still had no awareness of yielding. The moment he saw Xuan Ye close his eyes, he paused only briefly before launching the first attack without mercy!

He seemed utterly unmoved by his opponent's actions, without the slightest fluctuation in his expression!

The force of his saber strike came even faster than his verbal warning!

It looked plain and unadorned, but the ordinary stepping slash, seemingly practiced countless times, crossed nearly fifteen meters between them in an instant. Carrying a savage aura, it descended from above and enveloped Xuan Ye's entire body!

A bloody killing intent struck head-on, making hearts tremble!

Even knowing that Luo Luoji was nearby and would ensure nothing went wrong, the strike still gave everyone the feeling that the poor kid would be cleaved in two the next moment.

Luo Luoji, who stood nearby and was ready to intervene at any time, was also slightly surprised by the attack. His old brother seemed to have made another breakthrough recently and was close to finding his own path. For commoner Knight Attendants, finding one's own path was a spiritual transformation that had to be undergone before reaching the professional rank!

Jack the Dismemberer was not called that because he was naturally cruel. In truth, scavengers rarely had opportunities to kill. For other Scavenger Squads, they were usually the ones being killed, and even though the Luo Luo Scavenger Squad had a decent overall lineup, they still avoided most conflicts.

He had earned that title because most of what they collected were monster carcasses. To make them easier to carry, the corpses naturally had to be dismantled and processed. Ordinary low-ranking Knight Attendants found it extremely difficult to cut apart tough monster corpses, while Jack was the person in the squad, aside from Luo Luoji, who had dismembered the most!

Well, that explained why he had the aura of a bloody butcher. He really was a butcher...

But likewise, because he had practiced his saber on monster carcasses for so long, he had trained this originally ordinary saber technique to the point of perfection!

Perhaps because the technique itself was too basic, and because he specialized only in it, Jack found it difficult to achieve explosive overperformance. When facing opponents whose overall abilities surpassed his own, he could hardly resist. But because he was so familiar with this move, opponents weaker than him would not be given even the slightest chance!

To get a clearer look at the changes in his old brother's strength, Luo Luoji deliberately waited another half-step. He had condensed the Professional Core of a Guardian within the Inner Palace of his Qi and Blood. Protecting others was as natural to him as eating and drinking, and it was what he excelled at most.

With his professional-rank strength, he was absolutely confident he could knock the kid aside at the last moment and take the blow himself. Of course, his method was a little rough. The kid would definitely suffer some bruises and broken bones after being rammed aside, but it would not be anything serious. Consider it punishment for showing off.

Even if he knew his opponent would not take his life, he absolutely could not handle things so carelessly. He had actually closed his eyes and handed his life over to someone else. That was irresponsibility toward himself. What if Luo Luoji chose not to save him?

Young people were better off suffering some setbacks and learning from the experience...

Just as Luo Luoji observed the changes in his old brother while casually taking a few steps forward, preparing to suddenly burst forth with force and use his fortress-like body over two meters tall to knock away that "little runt"...

Xuan Ye, standing in the center of the field, opened his tightly shut eyes when the saber strike had passed halfway and the fierce wind was already cutting painfully across his cheeks!

The originally pure black pupils turned completely into an eerie blood-red the instant they opened. Complicated runes seemed to flicker and rotate in the depths of his eyes!

Jack merely met his gaze by accident, yet he felt as if his soul would be sucked into that deep, eerie crimson! An impulse rose within him to sink into it forever!

Even with his willpower, he was completely unable to control himself and look away!

His heart shook violently! He had no idea what had happened, and he had never experienced anything like this before!

If this had been an exchange with an opponent of the same rank, he would already have lost! In a life-and-death battle where one opening could determine victory or defeat, such a massive flaw and pause were utterly fatal!

However, because the move in his hand was so familiar and the soul vortex was so domineering, it all happened in an instant. His mental disturbance barely affected his body at all. The technique had already become physical instinct, so while his mind was bound, the power of the strike merely weakened slightly.

Even if its attack power had dropped by only a trace, it was still lethal to a Sixth Grade Knight Attendant!

At that moment, Xuan Ye had not noticed at all that his eyes had locked down his opponent's consciousness. All of his attention was focused on the incoming move.

When he activated the Blood Pupils and focused entirely on that slash, the scene before him seemed to be suddenly divided into countless images. Everything slowed at a tremendous rate.

Every trajectory of his opponent's saber became countless connected fragments of motion, as if a film reel had been dismantled frame by frame. All subsequent paths and patterns manifested in his eyes as phantom images.

How he could evade it, how many possibilities existed, and what follow-up movements could be made all appeared instinctively, like illusory rehearsals unfolding in advance.

His opponent's speed, strength, trajectory, even the flow of the air, wind speed, temperature, and countless other pieces of data all became visible!

They were broken down by innumerable coordinate axes into the most basic vector parameters!

Even every point, every section, and every part of the opponent's saber—from edge to spine—along with its relationship to time, the force it generated, and the changes in cutting power, were all calculated precisely to several decimal places!

After all the first-level parameters were displayed in an instant, the second-level feedback naturally followed.

"Overall ability surpassing opponent by up to 120%: 772 exploitable flaws..."

"Overall ability equal: 106..."

"Overall ability exceeding by 80%: 22..."

"Own burst speed lower by 68%, strength lower by 36%. Two exploitable flaws. Four possible countermeasure patterns..."

Under normal circumstances, Xuan Ye's own strength was not this far below his opponent's. But Jack had built up momentum and charged forward, perfectly combining speed and strength. Since Xuan Ye stood still, the weapon gap made the difference between them enormous. He had only 36 percent.

Yet even so, his eyes had still found two exploitable points!

This move of Jack's could be said to have undergone countless refinements. It possessed an irresistible crushing advantage against low-ranking Knight Attendants. Overwhelming force defeated ten techniques. Under normal circumstances, no matter how many flaws Xuan Ye spotted, they would not help him break the move in such a short time.

But now, with his opponent's mental state suppressed, he had forcibly created exploitable points!

Wooden Sword!

Raise hand!

Two light taps in rapid succession!

Even his grip on the sword still looked unfamiliar. When he attacked, he also seemed afraid that the Wooden Sword would not withstand the impact. Both times, it merely brushed past in a fleeting touch, yet each collision shattered another section from the sword's tip.

But after those two consecutive taps, the saber move, which had revealed a tiny imperfection because of that pause, seemed to have its minute flaw and crack magnified infinitely!

The force within the blade, which had originally flowed smoothly as one, was thrown apart and dismantled by those two light touches, like rat droppings in a pot of porridge. In an instant, its power became chaotic and uncontrollable.

Bzzz—

The violently trembling saber hilt shook free of Jack's palm and flew from his hand!

Xuan Ye, however, seemed to have anticipated it already. He tilted his head aside in advance, and the dislodged saber shot past his hair toward the space behind him! It took several severed strands with it!

Boom!

The saber plunged into the sand, sending a spray of grains flying!

This turn of events left Luo Luoji, who had already reached the two of them and forcibly halted his momentum to ram Xuan Ye aside, completely dumbfounded. Holy shit, what kind of brutal ability was that...?

Who could give me some buffs? This new book needs support—bring on the favorites and recommendations.