The Dark Night

The night was deep and dark.

Thick clouds covered the moonlight, and the steady drizzle had stopped. The streets were muddy, and cars speeding by now and then splashed mud all over pedestrians at the roadside.

Whenever the pedestrians were about to curse, all they could see was the departing cars' taillights.

Liu Tian put away the gemstone he had completely absorbed and looked with satisfaction at the 6 beside Origin Point on his status panel. He felt a little content.

Ever since he had first relied on adding points to break through to Martial Artist and prove the power of hard work, Liu Tian had kept his Origin Points saved up and hadn't used them.

For one thing, Origin Points were hard to come by. For another, he didn't have anything he needed them for at the moment.

Under Tian Dao's training, Liu Tian had grown stronger one step at a time. It wasn't as fast as adding points, but it wasn't slow, either. He hadn't encountered any bottlenecks or found anything in particular that he needed to work hard on.

And whether he added points now or later, Liu Tian's intuition told him that, in theory, the improvement should be the same. Since he could still make steady progress, it was more worthwhile to save his points for when his progress slowed down.

What's more, Liu Tian had limited ways of obtaining Origin Energy at the moment. Even if he used all his points, he might not break through to Fighter. And even if he did, at best he'd be about as powerful as a human-shaped, self-propelled automatic rifle. There was no need to force a breakthrough now.

After all, Initiate, Martial Artist, Fighter—he had only just taken the second step of three. His long journey had only just begun. How could he rush headlong ahead?

Senior Brother Bai Cinan didn't look like a good person, but he was quite generous.

As Liu Tian walked home, he thought about Bai Cinan, whom he had just met.

There was no doubt about it. That man was strong. Very, very strong.

That pure Dominating Thought, that clear Killing Intent—when Bai Cinan had appeared before him, Liu Tian had felt as though his life was completely out of his hands.

To reach that level, measured purely in Origin Points, Bai Cinan would have to have at least a hundred.

But why? Why, when he saw him, did he feel more than fear and excitement?

He felt a goddamn urge to fight him, to beat him, to devour him completely.

The feeling was so intense, as if instinct were telling him that if he could beat Bai Cinan, if he could devour him completely, then he would grow stronger, undergo a goddamn total evolution.

That was also why Liu Tian had hurried away. Unlike Tian Dao and Bai Cinan, who had already advanced to Fighter and could control their own desires, if his urges kept growing, Liu Tian would find it very, very hard to stop himself from attacking Bai Cinan.

Even though he knew that, with his current strength, he'd only be killing himself...

Was it because of the Heavenly Martial Killing Dao? Then why didn't I feel this way about Master?

Liu Tian pondered the question, but before he could come up with an answer, an unexpected incident interrupted his thoughts.

In this era, security cameras weren't everywhere. Even though electric lights had gradually become commonplace, the deep darkness of night was still the best cover.

According to incomplete statistics, nearly ninety percent of the cases in the Hundred Flowers Kingdom each year took place at night.

That was why, although the Hundred Flowers Kingdom had long been promoting the idea of a city that never slept, it had never managed to make it a reality.

No matter how wild or crazy young people were, they still went home before ten at night. But that didn't mean it was necessarily safe before ten.

In special circumstances, they could still easily find themselves in a situation like this.

In a gloomy alley, two burly men were carrying a thrashing sack on their backs. From Liu Tian's perspective, with his keen eyesight, he could still make out the curvy figure bulging from the sack in the faint light, even though it was dark. It was clearly a woman.

The brutes seemed well-trained. One held the front while the other gripped the rear. They moved quickly without making much noise, weaving from alley to alley under cover of darkness and heading toward a prearranged location.

Kidnapping?

The familiar word came to Liu Tian's mind.

It was an ancient profession. Countless predecessors had literally shed blood and lost their heads in the trade, following one another into the fray. Most of them had died violent deaths.

The war had led to mass conscription, and incidents like this had nearly disappeared. But once the war ended, the thugs who had received military training were released back into society. On top of that, the international situation had been turbulent in recent years, and many people had gone bankrupt or lost their jobs. This ancient profession had begun to flourish like never before.

That was one reason Liu Yun hadn't tried to stop Liu Tian from learning martial arts in the first place—at least it would give him enough strength to protect himself.

People joked that ten years of martial arts training couldn't beat a single tap of the finger. But Liu Yun had seen martial artists in action and knew that, a lot of the time, they didn't need to be faster than a bullet. They only needed to be faster than a person.

What should I do?

Liu Tian didn't have a phone, and using a pay phone to call the police didn't seem like it would help much.

Anyone who could be kidnapped was at least from a well-off family, so the police would respond faster than usual. But with the response times of this era, even with that slight improvement, calling the police was still just calling the police.

Should he help? Or should he look the other way to avoid trouble?

When he spotted them, he had instinctively applied what Tian Dao had taught him, concealed himself, and followed them all the way. But Liu Tian hadn't actually decided whether to intervene. He had only reacted automatically, wanting to take control of the situation.

The alleys grew more numerous, and abandoned buildings were everywhere. The electric lights that had once been commonplace grew sparse. While Liu Tian hesitated and dithered, the brutes had already left the bustling city center and were gradually approaching the slums.

Knowing he couldn't hesitate any longer, Liu Tian seized an opening and followed his instincts, attacking without hesitation.

Once he had made up his mind, Liu Tian acted as soon as the thought arose, just as a Martial Artist should. He struck with a killing move right away—Two Dragons Emerge from the Sea!

? Danger!

The brutes were clearly well-trained. The moment Liu Tian sprang into action, they reacted quickly, releasing the sack and reaching for their waists.

But the Martial Artist's ability to act as soon as the thought arose gave him a huge advantage in an ambush. And since he had caught them off guard, the two ordinary brutes had barely touched the iron objects that made them feel safe before a heavy punch struck each of them squarely in the head.

The powerful blows made both their heads twist with a sharp crack. Their faces turned backward, their backs of their heads turned forward, and blood spurted from their twisted necks. The two men died on the spot from the single strike.