Lu Lin had already realized that these five men had no intention of letting him leave tonight.
They weren't merely looking to teach him a lesson.
They truly wanted him dead.
If you show me no mercy, don't expect any from me.
Lu Lin had never been the sort to keep talking things out with someone who had a blade at his throat.
When people drew their blades on him, he would answer with his own.
Out of the corner of his eye, Lu Lin watched the four young men and the scar-faced brawny man.
The scar-faced man occasionally smiled in approval at the four young men's attacks on Lu Lin, and now and then shook his head in displeasure.
In his eyes, Lu Lin was nothing more than a living target that could move.
By now, the four young men had spent a great deal of their stamina and Vitality Power attacking Lu Lin nonstop.
To them, Lu Lin was a monster.
He was clearly only an Advanced Martial Disciple, yet he could block their Battle Sabers—and even using Vitality Power didn't help.
How could someone like this exist in the world?
As time went on, the four young men gradually let their guard down.
Their relentless attacks had achieved nothing, and Lu Lin was still leaping around as if nothing had happened.
"Clang."
Just then, the Tiger-Tattooed Youth's Battle Saber was knocked from his hand by Counter Shock once again.
This time, though, he seemed rather dispirited. After all, his saber had already been knocked to the ground several times.
As a result, even the motion of crouching to pick it up was slower than before.
An opening!
Lu Lin cried out inwardly.
He glanced at the scar-faced man's position and made his decision in an instant.
Using one young man's attack as cover, Lu Lin fell straight to the ground, curled up, and rolled along it.
When he appeared again, he was already at the scar-faced man's feet.
"Die!"
Lu Lin slashed at him.
He had never learned a Blade Technique.
But this strike was fueled by his fury, and he put all his strength into it.
A flash of blade light.
The scar-faced man had never expected Lu Lin to slip out of his apprentices' encirclement at a moment like this and strike at him.
He saw the blade light.
He tried to dodge.
But it was already too late.
Lu Lin's figure was like a bolt of lightning.
Unbelievably fast.
In the blink of an eye, he was right in front of the scar-faced man.
Before the other man could react,
Lu Lin unleashed every last bit of strength he had.
A flash of blade light.
The scar-faced man's head flew into the air.
It spun as it rose.
He saw the final scene of his life.
Moonlight spilled across the world.
Blood sprayed everywhere.
"Thud."
The scar-faced man's body crashed heavily to the ground, blood gushing from the severed neck.
"M-Master?"
The Tiger-Tattooed Youth, who had just crouched down, stared at the scene in utter shock.
He had only crouched to pick up his saber. How had Lu Lin suddenly appeared beside his master and beheaded him with one strike?
Wait.
This had to be an illusion.
The Tiger-Tattooed Youth needed to rub his face and calm down.
But Lu Lin wasn't about to give him the chance.
It was the first time in his life he had killed someone, yet he felt no discomfort afterward. If anything, he was a little... excited?
The Tiger-Tattooed Youth was crouched on the ground, not moving an inch. He was the perfect target.
Under the young man's somewhat dazed gaze, Lu Lin gave him a swift death.
The other three snapped out of it at once.
They had been following the scar-faced man, learning from him and sparring with him. They had often fought, but this was their first time witnessing a murder.
Now, watching their master and senior apprentice die before their eyes, the three instinctively tried to run.
Lu Lin cut down two more. Watching the three fleeing men, he sneered.
Had they never heard the saying: never turn your back on an enemy, because that was the same as handing them your life?
They had given him an opening. Of course Lu Lin wouldn't let it slip away.
Taking three steps at a time, Lu Lin easily caught up to the fleeing men. One slash each, and all three were dead.
The deserted path was now thick with the stench of blood.
The Battle Saber in Lu Lin's hand was still dripping blood.
Only after all five had died did his tense excitement gradually settle. When the pungent smell of blood reached his nostrils, Lu Lin felt a faint wave of discomfort.
Next, he had to deal with the aftermath.
The four young men each had an F-grade Battle Saber. They had been gifts from the scar-faced man after they had just graduated to become Martial Artists. Today was the first time they had used them—and now they had fallen into Lu Lin's hands.
Aside from the four sabers, the men had little money on them. Two carried bank cards, but Lu Lin didn't know their PINs and couldn't withdraw anything, so he gave up on them.
Next was the scar-faced man.
Lu Lin had barely begun searching him when his hand found a book. He took it out and looked at it by the moonlight. It was a martial arts manual, Soaring Cloud Steps.
Beside the title was a small character: "Yellow." At first, Lu Lin thought it was the scar-faced man's signature, but then he quickly realized—
After becoming Martial Artists, people needed to learn Grade-ranked techniques to make the most of their Vitality Power.
Heaven, Earth, Black, Yellow.
Heaven Grade techniques were the highest, and Yellow Grade techniques the lowest.
But even the lowest-grade Yellow Grade techniques cost hundreds of thousands to a million or more.
Rare or unusual Yellow Grade techniques could even cost over a million.
This Soaring Cloud Steps was just an ordinary movement manual, though. Its price was probably around five or six hundred thousand.
Lu Lin calmly estimated the manual's value, but the hand holding Soaring Cloud Steps had already begun to tremble slightly.
[Learnable technique discovered. Learn it?]
The system's prompt made Lu Lin's spirits lift. A place filled with the stench of blood and corpses was no place to learn a new technique.
Lu Lin set Soaring Cloud Steps on the ground and continued searching the scar-faced man.
A few First-Order Monster Cores, cigarettes, and an ID card. That was all.
Lu Lin was already very satisfied with what he had found. After confirming that none of them had anything else valuable, he left with four F-grade Battle Sabers, a Yellow Grade Soaring Cloud Steps manual, and a few Monster Cores.
As for the scene, Lu Lin had no intention of reporting it to the Wu'an Bureau. He didn't want to invite trouble.
When Lu Lin got home, his parents had already gone to bed. He went into the room he shared with Lu Qi.
Although Lu Lin had tried to keep as quiet as possible when he came in, he still woke Lu Qi.
"Bro, what took you so long?"
Lu Qi mumbled from the lower bunk. Lu Lin frowned.
This kid was really getting bold.
The lower bunk was his, but Lu Qi had taken it for himself while Lu Lin was late coming home.
But Lu Lin had just been through a perilous fight and come away with quite a haul, so he couldn't be bothered to argue with Lu Qi.
"It's nothing. I grabbed a late-night snack with some friends. Go back to sleep."
"Oh. Wait, bro, what's this?"
Lu Qi opened his eyes and saw the four gleaming F-grade Alloy Battle Knives in Lu Lin's arms. But in the darkness, he didn't see the bloodstains on Lu Lin.
"Knives. F-grade Battle Sabers, the kind that cost twenty thousand each."
"What?"
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