"What??"
Wang Bin froze for a second. Then bloodshot veins appeared in his eyes. "Fuck you, 5,000!" he cursed, pulling out the short knife in his hand and swinging it at the young man's head. But before the blade could reach him,
"Freeze!"
The young shopkeeper spoke in a quiet voice, even sounding a little impatient, as if he were dealing with a trivial nuisance.
Yet the instant that word left his mouth, it was as though time had been abruptly cut off for Wang Bin.
His raised knife, the fury and malice on his face, the bloodshot veins in his eyes, even the muscles tensed from exertion—all of it froze in midair.
Everyone was stunned.
Wang Bin was a bandit whose strength was neither particularly high nor particularly low—about that of a beginner at E-rank.
But this nimble, ruthless outlaw had just been... frozen in place?
Xiao Ran furrowed his brow. He hadn't sensed any special energy emanating from the young man.
Neither from a Cursed Object nor from a profession skill.
This ability to make words become law was so baffling that he couldn't make heads or tails of it.
Xiao Ran looked toward Golden Toad Son and Wu Man.
They shook their heads too, unable to tell what trick the young man had used.
The hall was just as silent.
Even the bald man stood rooted to the spot, staring at Wang Bin in confusion. The pungent smell of blood and the fierce aura of battle had yet to fade, but the young man's shout had suppressed them both.
The blind man in the corner wore the same stiff expression as before, but his withered hand, resting on the table around the scabbard, had silently moved to the hilt of his knife.
The young man didn't even