The moment Wang Quan stepped through the creaking wooden door of Wei Dayong's home, the night wrapped around him like thick ink. Almost as soon as he left the courtyard, four sinister auras suddenly locked onto him from different directions like venomous snakes!
In the darkness, a tall, gaunt man with a pale-as-paper face appeared first. He held an antique compass, its needle firmly nailed toward Wang Quan as it gave off a faint hum. His voice was shrill, carrying a condescending scrutiny: "It's him! His aura burns like fire, and his Blood Qi is like mercury! The prime test subject our lord is looking for... It's definitely him!"
Beside him, a broad-waisted, thickly muscled man with a face full of ridged flesh came forward with a vicious grin. His fan-sized hand reached straight for Wang Quan's shoulder. His voice was rough and hoarse. "Kid, count yourself lucky. Our lord has taken a fancy to you. Come with us quietly, and you'll suffer a little less flesh-and-skin pain. But if you resist..." His knuckles cracked loudly, making the threat plain.
Wang Quan did not even raise his eyelids. Just as the man's fingers were about to touch the hem of his clothes, his figure blurred like a ghost!
In the next instant, he had appeared several yards away. Without stopping at all, his body turned into a faintly visible black shadow. Moving at a speed far beyond ordinary understanding, he crossed the silent streets in a few leaps and headed straight for the desolate fields beyond the city.
The four men clearly had not expected their target to be so terrifyingly fast. Shock and fury mingled on their faces as they immediately activated their movement techniques and gave chase. Their speed was not slow either, proving that their cultivation was no trivial matter. They were at least skilled fighters who had touched the threshold of the Mortal Transformation Realm, and they clung tightly to Wang Quan's trail.
In the blink of an eye, the two sides landed one after another on an empty field ridge outside the city. The moonlight was deathly pale, illuminating the withered rice stubble and cold earth.
Wang Quan stopped and slowly turned around. His calm gaze swept over the four men as they closed in, forming a half-encirclement. "Whose men are you? Li Chongshan's?"
The gaunt man with the compass narrowed his eyes, seemingly surprised that Wang Quan had directly named the General of the Middle Army. But he immediately sneered. "Since you guessed it, why aren't you surrendering? Our lord's methods aren't something a lucky mud-legged peasant like you can imagine!"
Before his voice had even faded, the thickly muscled man could no longer hold himself back. He roared, "Why waste words with him? Take him down!" His body lunged forward, and a vicious grappling hand shot straight for Wang Quan's throat. The cutting wind around his fingers showed that he practiced a brutal technique for tearing tendons and dislocating bones.
Wang Quan did not even make an obvious move to dodge. Only when the claw was about to reach him did he shift his shoulder by the slightest amount. The man's supposedly sure-to-hit grab somehow missed, scraping past Wang Quan's collar.
As the man's figure slid past him, Wang Quan casually lifted his right foot and seemingly lightly kicked him in the lower abdomen.
"Bang!"
With a muffled boom, the burly man was struck as if by a charging barbaric bull. His entire body flew backward through the air, and a great mouthful of blood mixed with fragments of his organs burst from him before he landed. He crashed heavily into a ditch seven or eight meters away, twitched twice, and then fell silent.
"What?!"
The remaining three men's pupils shrank sharply, their faces filled with horror. They had not seen how Wang Quan had moved at all! One kick—just one casual kick—had killed a master who was close to the Mortal Transformation Realm?
"This one's tough! Everyone, get him!" the gaunt man shrilled. The three no longer dared to underestimate him. They erupted with their full cultivation at the same time, their fists, palms, and fingers carrying howling gusts of force as they viciously attacked Wang Quan's vital points from three different angles! Their coordination was flawless, their assault like a raging storm that sealed off every route of escape.
Yet Wang Quan continued standing where he was, utterly motionless. He did not even raise a hand to block.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Three muffled impacts, like blows against thick leather, rang out almost simultaneously. The trio's attacks landed solidly on Wang Quan's chest, back, and ribs.
Yet Wang Quan's clothes did not even flutter. The faint sheen covering his body, resembling the luster of ancient bronze skin, flickered slightly. All the force vanished like a mud ox sinking into the sea.
The three men felt as if they had struck a mountain soaring ten thousand zhang into the heavens. The rebounding force left their wrists aching and their Blood Qi roiling, while the color drained from their faces.
Wang Quan slowly raised his head. Moonlight shone across his expressionless face, and his eyes were as indifferent as ice that had endured through the ages. "Didn't you eat your fill? Or... is this all the strength you have?"
His calm words carried a chill that froze the marrow.
The gaunt man's alarm bells rang wildly in his heart. A deadly sense of danger seized him, and he screamed as he tried to retreat. "Fall back! Hurry! The intelligence was wrong! He isn't in the Mortal Transformation Realm..."
"Crack!"
His words cut off abruptly. At some point, Wang Quan's hand had clamped around his left knee like an iron vise. Without any unnecessary movement, his five fingers gently closed.
A teeth-grating crack exploded! The gaunt man's lower left leg bent backward at a bizarre angle, and stark white bone instantly pierced through his flesh and jutted into the air!
"Ah!" A shriek so horrific it no longer sounded human tore through the night sky.
Wang Quan casually tossed the howling gaunt man to the ground like a dead dog, then turned his gaze toward the other two men, who had been scared witless and stood frozen in place.
"Since you don't want to talk, then you don't need to." Wang Quan's voice remained calm, yet it pronounced their final judgment. "Once I beat you to death, someone will naturally come looking for me."
Before his voice had faded, he moved again. Like a tiger plunging into a flock of sheep, he left the remaining two no chance to offer effective resistance. One was struck in the chest by what appeared to be a casual palm from Wang Quan. His chest caved in instantly, and a bloody hole burst open through his back. The other was swept across the waist by a vicious whip kick. His body flew sideways like broken straw, his spine snapped into several pieces. By the time he hit the ground, he was already lifeless.
In the blink of an eye, only four corpses that still held a trace of warmth remained on the field ridge, along with the gaunt man, who hugged his broken leg and rolled about, howling.
Wang Quan walked over to the gaunt man and looked down at his face, twisted by extreme pain and fear.
"You... what kind of monster are you..." Tears and mucus streamed down the gaunt man's face as he babbled incoherently. "This strength... it isn't the Mortal Transformation Realm at all... Our lord won't let you off..."
Wang Quan bent down and leaned close to his ear. In a voice only the two of them could hear, he coldly uttered a few words:
"Who told you I was only in the Mortal Transformation Realm?"
"I forgot to mention it. My physical body... has already reached Core Condensation."
The gaunt man's pupils expanded to their utmost limit. Endless fear and disbelief froze on his face. The next moment, Wang Quan lightly touched his temple with the tip of his foot. After a nearly inaudible crack of bone, utter silence returned to the field ridge.
Wang Quan swept his expressionless gaze around, bent down, seized the ankles of the four corpses, and began walking toward Anping County's city wall at an unhurried pace, dragging them like several bags of refuse.
His heavy footsteps echoed through the silent night. Dragging the four corpses, he arrived beneath the towering city wall. It was already deep into the latter half of the night. The soldiers on night watch seemed to have heard the commotion, and torchlight swayed atop the wall.
Wang Quan paid no attention to any of this. He drew a deep breath, and the terrifying power within him, comparable to that of a Core Condensation great demon, erupted with a roar! His right fist clenched, the muscles in his arm bulging as it tore through the air with a shriek and slammed violently into the hard city wall!
"BOOM!!!"
The tremendous blast shook half of Anping County! Brick and stone fragments flew everywhere, and four shocking craters were smashed into the thick wall.
He casually stuffed the four corpses into the four craters as if hammering in nails, brutally driving them deep inside! The bodies twisted and deformed as they became firmly embedded in the wall. Dark-red blood slowly streamed down its surface, forming an exceptionally gruesome and horrifying image beneath the deathly pale moonlight.
After finishing everything, Wang Quan dusted off his hands as if he had merely completed a trivial chore. He raised his head and swept his icy gaze over the garrison soldiers atop the wall, who had been frightened pale and stood as silent as cicadas in winter. Then he turned around, his figure merging into the shadows beneath the wall before disappearing without a trace.
All that remained were the four savage corpses embedded in the wall, along with the nauseating stench of blood permeating the air.
Atop the city wall, a deathly silence reigned. Only the crackling of the torches and the soldiers' suppressed, uncontrollable chattering teeth could be heard.
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