Too Slow

Ten days later.

Wheels crushed over hard earth, producing a dull rumbling sound.

A long caravan of heavily armored merchant wagons bearing the banner of Wind Snow Prefecture raced along the official road.

The beasts pulling the wagons were all Scaled Fur Rhinoceroses, their pillar-like hooves stirring up gusts of wind as they stamped the ground.

Inside a spacious carriage in the middle of the convoy.

A faint trace of expensive incense lingered in the air.

Five richly dressed young men and women sat within the carriage.

They wore swords and sabers at their waists, along with jade pendants of superb quality.

All of them were descendants of prominent families from nearby cities.

They were heading to Wind Snow Prefecture to take part in the triennial Martial Examination and sect selection.

In a corner sat a young man dressed in coarse hemp cloth.

It was Sun Yu.

He sat with his arms folded across his chest, an old bamboo hat on his head with its brim pulled low. His eyes were slightly closed, and his long, steady breaths were almost inaudible.

Compared to the aristocratic geniuses in the carriage, who chatted grandly and radiated high spirits, he was like a cold, hard stone that did not belong.

"I say, has the Changfeng Escort Agency gone mad for money? They'll stuff any stray cat or dog into our Grade-A carriage."

A young man in a Purple Cloud Satin Brocade Robe glanced at Sun Yu in the corner and sneered.

"Enough, Brother Lin. The escort agency needs to make money too." The white-robed young master beside him fanned himself with a folding fan, mockery curling at his lips.

"Looking at how he's dressed, he's probably some hunter from a backwater mountain village. He must have saved copper coins for half his life just to afford a ticket into the prefectural capital."

"A rustic country bumpkin who has never seen the world—wanting to visit the prefectural capital and witness its splendor is rather understandable." A girl in a green dress covered her mouth and laughed softly. Her gaze swept over Sun Yu's faded hemp clothes and straw sandals caked with dried mud, undisguised disgust flashing in her eyes.

"It's just that the sour stink on him has spoiled this fine wisteria incense."

"Hey, you country bumpkin." Lin Feiyang stretched out a foot and kicked the wooden board in front of Sun Yu.

Thud. The wooden board gave a muffled sound.

"Stay away from this young master. Don't get your lice on my satin."

In the corner.

Sun Yu did not even raise an eyelid.

The jeers and mockery from the outside world entered his ears with less force than a draft blowing through a hall.

He quietly listened to the rumble of wheels rolling over gravel, his thoughts already drifting to Wind Snow Prefecture thousands of miles away.

The prefectural capital.

It was the greatest center of power within tens of thousands of miles, where great families stood in abundance and sects entrenched themselves.

How many unfathomable cultivation arts were there? How many Martial Skills secretly passed down by great families?

Sun Yu slowly calculated in his heart.

At the thought of cultivation arts, he felt a faint restlessness stirring in his blood.

Over these past ten days, he had not been idle.

After leaving the Icefall Black Market, he had gone straight into the uninhabited depths of Black Crow Mountain.

That copy of Great Sun Boiling Blood Art was truly wicked.

The incomplete volume lacked a method for locking down one's blood. Once activated, one's vital blood ran wild like an unbridled horse.

But before the absolute rules of the panel, no imperfection was a problem.

The moment it reached perfection, the vital blood in his body had truly been ignited like a blazing great sun. The violent, pure yang energy had nearly roasted his Skin and Flesh alive.

If not for the Extreme Cold Internal Breath produced after the Cold Toad Breath Swallowing Technique reached Major Accomplishment, which had kept it firmly suppressed, he truly would have burned into charcoal like those unlucky fools Shopkeeper Zhou had mentioned.

That night.

With his bare hands, he had torn an Ironclad Earth Dragon at the Viscera Refining Realm in half!

His cultivation had now firmly entered the early stage of the Viscera Refining Realm.

His five viscera and six bowels were like a furnace, each heartbeat pumping out blood as heavy as mercury.

Beneath those coarse hemp clothes was hidden a terrifying demonic body capable of crushing anyone at the same realm.

These geniuses sitting in the carriage, convinced that they stood high above all others, had no idea they were sharing a ride with a monster that could crush them into Meat Paste at any moment.

"Are you deaf? I told you to get the hell away from me!"

Seeing that Sun Yu showed no reaction, Lin Feiyang felt humiliated, and his expression darkened at once.

He suddenly reached out, his five fingers clawed as Internal Breath from the middle stage of the Bone Forging Realm wrapped around them, and grabbed directly for Sun Yu's shoulder.

If this grab had landed on an ordinary person, their shoulder blade would have been crushed instantly.

The girl in green and the white-robed young master watched coldly, amused smiles hanging from their lips.

Just as Lin Feiyang's fingertips were about to touch that coarse hemp garment.

"Rumble!"

The carriage suddenly jolted violently!

The Scaled Fur Rhinoceros pulling the carriage let out an extremely terrified shriek, its massive body coming to an abrupt halt.

The powerful inertia instantly threw everyone in the carriage off balance.

"Ow!"

Lin Feiyang, who had been lunging forward, pitched headlong ahead and slammed his head hard against the carriage wall with a dull thud.

The girl in green and the young man in white also tumbled into a heap, utterly disheveled.

"What's going on?!"

Clutching his swollen, reddened forehead, Lin Feiyang cursed furiously, "Are the escort agency's men eating shit?"

"Young Master, ahead... there are... there are bandits ahead!" the driver's trembling voice came from outside.

The carriage door was violently shoved open.

The group craned their heads out to look.

Several enormous logs lay across the middle of the official road ahead.

Seven or eight roving bandits, each holding a Horse-Chopping Saber and wearing savage expressions, were glaring coldly at the caravan.

Their leader was a bald One-Eyed Dragon, carrying an enormous serrated Wolf-Tooth Club over his shoulder. An exceedingly dangerous aura radiated from him.

His Internal Breath was thick as slurry—the Viscera Refining Realm!

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"Hand over the women and valuables in the carriages, and this grandpa will leave your corpses intact." One-Eyed Dragon spat.

The caravan's Guard Captain drew his blade, his face deathly pale.

He was only at the Great Perfection of the Bone Forging Realm. He was no match at all for a Viscera Refining Realm bandit.

Inside the carriage.

Lin Feiyang and the others' expressions changed instantly.

All their lofty arrogance from moments ago vanished without a trace, replaced by naked, irrepressible terror.

They might have been geniuses, but their actual combat experience was pitifully scarce. Forget fighting a desperate Viscera Refining Realm outlaw across realms.

"Brother Lin... what do we do?" Even the white-clad young man's hand shook as he waved his fan.

"Shut up! How should I know?!" Lin Feiyang gritted his teeth, one hand pressed to his Sword Hilt, yet he dared not draw it.

Just then.

A faint sound of cloth rustling came from the corner.

Sun Yu slowly opened his eyes.

There was not the slightest panic in those eyes beneath the shadow of his conical hat.

He did not even spare the vicious-looking bandits outside a glance.

He merely raised his head, his gaze passing over Lin Feiyang toward the faintly visible city walls of the Prefecture City in the distance.

"Too slow."

Sun Yu softly uttered three words.

He stood up.

The instant he rose.

The sturdy floorboards of the entire carriage let out an ear-piercing crack.

"Kacha!"

The half-foot-thick ironwood floorboards were stamped with two deep depressions by the slightest trace of heavy force that leaked unconsciously from beneath his feet.

Lin Feiyang and the others stared wide-eyed at this rustic country bumpkin they had mocked just moments ago.

Sun Yu reached out and pushed Lin Feiyang aside.

It looked like a feather-light shove.

Yet Lin Feiyang felt a vast, overwhelming force crash into his chest like mountains toppling and seas overturning.

"Bang!"

His entire body flew backward and smashed viciously into the carriage wall, making him spit out a mouthful of blood with a wail.

Sun Yu did not look back.

He lifted the carriage curtain and bent down to step out.

Leaving behind only several dumbfounded, trembling scions of great clans inside the carriage.

Sun Yu jumped down from the carriage, both feet hitting the ground.

Boom!

The ground trembled faintly.

He raised his head and looked at One-Eyed Dragon ahead, the man carrying a massive spiked mace.

Sun Yu stomped down.

Boom!

The ground exploded into a huge crater.

Sun Yu became a savage blur, charging straight at One-Eyed Dragon.

"Courting death!" One-Eyed Dragon roared, swinging his enormous spiked mace and smashing it down with a howling gale of foul wind.

Sun Yu neither dodged nor evaded.

His left hand shot out.

His five fingers clamped down like iron pincers, seizing the tip of the descending spiked mace in a death grip!

Clang!

Sparks flew in all directions.

The spiked mace did not budge in Sun Yu's hand.

The savage grin on One-Eyed Dragon's face froze instantly, his pupils shrinking to pinpoints.

It felt as though his weapon had struck a mountain forged from refined iron.

Sun Yu swung his blade with his right hand.

There was no technique to it.

Only pure, monstrous strength.

Slash!

The blade flashed.

One-Eyed Dragon's huge body suddenly stiffened.

The next second.

A bald head flew into the sky.

Blood sprayed into the air like a fountain.

Sun Yu flicked the droplets of blood from his woodcutter's knife and slid it back into his belt.

He turned to look at the remaining bandits.

"Scram."

A single word, utterly calm.

The bandits screamed in terror, then scrambled and crawled as they fled into the wilderness.

Sun Yu turned and returned to the carriage.

Inside the cabin, silence hung as heavy as death.

Lin Feiyang clutched his chest, terror filling his eyes to the very brim.

Sun Yu sat back down in that corner.

He closed his eyes again.

"Keep moving."

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