Backstab

They exchanged glances, complicated emotions surging in their eyes--

Gratitude, relief at having survived, guilt over the debt they owed their savior...

But in the end, when their eyes fell on the Magic Stone Mine worth hundreds of millions, the flames of greed consumed every shred of conscience.

Jin Chang'en's Adam's apple bobbed. His fingers silently crept toward the dagger at his waist, its edge gleaming with a cold, faint blue light.

It was a C-class magic weapon, the Poison Scale Blade, which he had bought with most of his savings.

The blade was coated with a neurotoxin mixed from several B-class magical beasts. A single cut was enough to kill.

They had just been unable to find the Lizardman leader, so naturally he hadn't been able to use this last trump card.

The burly man with the giant axe and the greatsword warrior also tightened their grips on their weapons.

They had seen how much energy Xu Feng had expended in the fight, and how the blood qi steaming from his terrifying armor was gradually weakening...

They might have only one chance.

The moment Xu Feng stepped onto the mountaintop with his back to them, his dark red armor beginning to crumble piece by piece and dissolve into drifting blood qi--

The three of them moved!

No shouts, no warning, only the most despicable sneak attack!

The giant axe came down toward the back of Xu Feng's neck with a howl of wind!

The greatsword thrust straight for his back!

And the Poison Scale Blade in Jin Chang'en's hand became a faint blue blur, soundlessly slashing toward Xu Feng's side!

Xu Feng truly hadn't been on guard.

In his moral understanding of the world,

I'd saved you. The least you could do was thank me, right?

How could you repay kindness with betrayal?

So he was completely unprepared...

Thud!

The giant axe and the greatsword struck his back with a dull impact.

To the two men's horror, their full-force blows hadn't even managed to break Xu Feng's skin!

The force rebounding from the axe blade and sword edge instead sent agony through their already injured arms. Their wounds split open, spraying blood.

But Jin Chang'en's Poison Scale Blade had succeeded.

The sharpness of a C-class magic weapon, combined with the precision of the sneak attack, had allowed the tip to barely pierce the skin at Xu Feng's lower back, where his armor had just receded, leaving a shallow cut less than two centimeters long.

The faint blue toxin on the blade surged into the wound like a living thing!

"We got him!"

Delight flashed in Jin Chang'en's eyes, then twisted into a sneer.

"Kid, there are some things you shouldn't touch! This is a mixed neurotoxin from B-class magical beasts. In thirty seconds, your whole body will be paralyzed, and your heart and lungs will fail--"

His words cut off abruptly.

Xu Feng was slowly turning around.

There was no fear on his young, handsome face, only a cold, eerily calm expression, as if he were looking at a dead man.

What made Jin Chang'en's scalp crawl even more was the way the muscles around the cut from the Poison Scale Blade were writhing and bulging strangely!

An invisible force squeezed the black, poisonous blood out of the wound. When it dripped onto the ground, it sizzled and corroded the surface.

Xu Feng reached back, his five fingers like blades, toward the bulge--

Rip!

He tore a palm-sized patch of flesh, already completely black and necrotic, right off his body!

The wound exposed clear red muscle fibers, but barely any blood flowed. Instead, it began to heal and grow back at a visible rate!

His absolute control over his body after breaking through to the Blood Replacement Realm let him seal off the spread of the poison with his blood qi in an instant and forcibly remove the infected tissue!

"Why...?"

Xu Feng's voice was soft, but it plunged the three men into an icy abyss.

He tossed the blackened flesh to the ground and walked toward them, one step at a time.

Jin Chang'en's face was deathly pale, but a crazed obsession still lingered in his eyes.

"People die for wealth... birds die for food... That's just how this world... works..."

The greatsword warrior and the burly man with the giant axe had already collapsed to the ground.

They had been badly wounded to begin with, and the force rebounding from their attempted sneak attack had only made their injuries worse.

As Xu Feng approached, their eyes filled with fear and pleading. Their lips trembled as they tried to beg for mercy, but they couldn't manage a complete sentence.

Summoning the last of his strength, the burly man with the giant axe reached a trembling hand into his breast pocket--

There was an open pocket watch inside, with a photograph tucked into the inside of its cover:

It showed him holding the hand of a little girl whose smile shone as brightly as the sun, standing in front of a carousel at an amusement park.

His eyes wavered between pleading and longing.

Xu Feng saw the pocket watch and the innocent smile in the photograph.

He paused.

Then he kept walking.

"They all had families. They all had people they cared about."

Xu Feng's voice was calm, terrifyingly calm.

"Did I... not have anyone, too?"

He thought of his mother's weak cough.

He thought of his father, who had spent half his life running around and wearing himself out for the family.

He thought of why he'd fought so hard to grow stronger.

So you could betray the person who saved your life without a second thought, just for the sake of your family?

So my family... deserved to suffer the pain of losing me?

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Three muffled impacts.

Quick and decisive, without hesitation.

Xu Feng crushed the greatsword warrior's and the burly man's skulls beneath his feet, then blasted Jin Chang'en's face apart with a punch as he roared in defiance.

[Breakthrough Points +8]

[Breakthrough Points +10]

[Breakthrough Points +9]

Then he crouched down and began to dispose of the bodies.

He crushed their hearts, dismembered them, and tossed the remains piece by piece into the churning swamp nearby.

Schools of carnivorous fish swarmed over them, tearing at the remains in a frenzy. The dark red blood quickly stained the water an even deeper shade.

He was meticulous and thorough.

The novels all said that if you didn't dispose of the bodies properly and let your enemies come back to life, you'd be in serious trouble.

When the fish dragged the last limb beneath the water, Xu Feng picked up the half-broken pocket watch from the mud.

The little girl in the surviving photograph still wore her radiant smile, unaware that the big hand holding hers had vanished forever.

Xu Feng stared at it silently for a few seconds.

A mocking, almost self-deprecating smile slowly appeared on his face.

"This damn world."

He tossed the pocket watch into the swamp and watched it sink.