Vengeance Fulfilled, Techniques Acquired, Taking Flight!

Under the moonlight, the He family's side courtyard.

Fang Hong stood with his saber raised, his entire body radiating a frigid aura.

The moonlight striking the long blade, tinged by a bloody sheen, reflected an even more desolate gleam.

Across from Fang Hong, Deng Changliu's muscles were taut all over, his gaze locked onto Fang Hong with utmost vigilance.

Though Deng Changliu's stance appeared fully poised to strike.

In truth, only he himself knew.

The muscles in his legs had already tensed to their limit, ready at any moment to burst into flight.

His opponent was stronger, and armed with a blade to boot.

How could he possibly fight?

Whether he could even keep his life was still an open question.

The next second, the instant a fierce glint flashed in Fang Hong's eyes.

Deng Changliu immediately sensed the shift in Fang Hong's aura.

The muscles in his legs, strained to the breaking point, suddenly erupted with immense force.

With a dull thud, his entire body shot straight toward the nearby Moon Gate.

Seeing this, Fang Hong's mouth twisted into a sneer. "Trying to run?"

"Think you can get away?"

He too stomped down hard, relying on the crushing advantage of Flesh Refinement Mastery.

Fang Hong unleashed strength far beyond Deng Changliu's, chasing after him at an even greater speed.

Long saber in hand, the moment he caught up to Deng Changliu's back.

A horizontal slash—Sweep the Thousand Armies!

Though Deng Changliu didn't turn around, the sharp prickling sense of deadly crisis and decades of experience.

Drove him to instinctively duck and roll to the ground.

The instant he dropped and rolled, a biting blade light swept through the air, missing him by a hair's breadth.

But Fang Hong's Military Formation Saber Art had already reached perfection.

His transitions in saber momentum were far quicker than Deng Changliu had imagined.

Seeing Deng Changliu duck to evade.

And before he even hit the ground, Fang Hong's arm muscles gave a slight tremor.

The direction of his arm's force shifted instantly, and the flow and burst of inner strength within him changed abruptly.

Then, Fang Hong's entire body spun with the inertia of that horizontal slash.

As he turned, the blade shifted from a horizontal cut to a diagonal downward stroke, and finally swept upward in a rising arc.

Step Up and Lift!

"Damn it!"

Facing Fang Hong's fierce and shifting combo, Deng Changliu, still rolling on the ground, felt his pupils contract sharply.

He only had time to thrust out his hands—now thicker, with knobby, enlarged joints.

Then, with a wet pfft, those hands, with their swollen knuckles, thick fingers, and even slightly twisted muscles.

Were cleanly severed at the wrists, thudding to the ground.

The gap in strength between them was simply too vast, and Fang Hong still held the long blade.

Until the body was tempered to a certain formidable level, flesh and blood could never withstand the sharpness of a weapon.

Two streams of blood instantly spurted from the severed stumps of Deng Changliu's arms.

Deng Changliu's mouth gaped wide, a piercing scream tearing from his throat.

But before his scream could fully sound, a flash of light stabbed straight through his throat.

The scream died before it could begin.

With a wet pfft, Fang Hong pulled the blade from Deng Changliu's throat.

Then, with a casual slash, he completely severed his neck.

The entire process, though it looked like Fang Hong was constantly shifting his techniques.

Was, due to the disparity in strength, actually over in a very short time.

Barely a few breaths.

Compared to slaughtering the wolves of the pack, killing a man seemed almost absurdly simple.

After that, Fang Hong went to another room and butchered all of Deng Changliu's remaining disciples.

Thus ended the matter.

Chen Lao San and his family, Qian Chunsheng and his disciples, Scholar He and his entire household including the steward, servants, and guards—forty-seven people in total—all had their heads taken and were put to death!

Great vengeance was achieved!!

At this moment, Fang Hong felt his mind clear and bright, utterly at ease.

A joy of supreme freedom filled his heart.

After standing quietly for a while, Fang Hong's heart suddenly jumped as he recalled the strange state of Deng Changliu's hands earlier.

"That must have been caused by the technique Deng Changliu cultivated, right?"

He swept a glance at Deng Changliu's corpse—the sweat-soaked clothes clearly didn't look like they could hide anything.

So Fang Hong hurried back into the room Deng Changliu had just come out of.

He had no choice—he was desperately short on techniques right now!

Before long, looking at the two manuals he had found in Deng Changliu's room, a satisfied and excited smile spread across Fang Hong's face.

Two manuals—one was "Iron Leg Skill," the other "Great Falling Monument Hand."

"Finally, I have new techniques to train!"

And they were techniques far more profound than Horse Stance and Military Formation Saber Art!

Immediately after, Fang Hong took the two manuals and the silver he had looted from the He Mansion and left.

The next morning.

Fang Hong was once again sitting in his usual spot at Xuan Yue Inn, savoring the food.

As he ate, he watched the yamen runners constantly coming and going and conducting checks on the street below, looking completely at ease.

Though Scholar He wasn't the richest man in Fenshui Town, he was still a mid-tier landlord and moneylender there.

In one night, his entire household was slaughtered, over forty people dead.

This instantly ignited public outcry across all of Fenshui Town.

The entire town was immediately put under martial law.

But none of this had anything to do with Fang Hong anymore.

A whole night had already passed.

If he were an ordinary perpetrator, he would probably have fled Fenshui Town by now.

And based on the traces left behind, there was no way to track it back to Fang Hong.

So Fang Hong wasn't worried at all.

Even the yamen runners below, though they kept questioning people, their half-hearted actions showed they didn't hold out much hope of finding the killer either.

As for the so-called martial law, it was practically a joke.

Fenshui Town relied on the bustling water transport of the Fen River tributary, with thriving commerce and countless merchants and goods passing through.

Martial law would disrupt water transport and business, and the other wealthy families, merchants, and even commoners would keep applying pressure.

Whether this lockdown could even last half a day was questionable.

After casually glancing at the street scene below a few times, Fang Hong's gaze fell back on the crude system panel before him.

Great Falling Monument Hand: First Layer (1/100)

Iron Leg Skill: Beginner (1/100)

Fang Hong didn't bother looking at Horse Stance or the other skills—his attention was completely captured by these two techniques.

"One haul, and I'm fat!"

Excitement blazed in Fang Hong's eyes.

"Now, I can finally take off a little!"

Even Fang Hong himself hadn't expected such a huge gain this time.

A mere guard from a minor He Mansion had dropped him two whole techniques!

And that wasn't even counting the thousands of taels in silver notes and some gold and silver he had looted from the He Mansion.

Even that was only part of the He family's wealth.

A lot of the silver he simply couldn't carry away, and the He Mansion had numerous properties and farmland he couldn't plunder.

Damn, these landlords were really loaded!

And yet, Scholar He had still been coveting the Fang family's two plots of good land.

What a greedy bastard!

Truly a world that devoured people!

Commoners could barely survive, but a mid-tier landlord in a town—

Even with just a small-scale looting, the take exceeded Fang Hong's imagination.

No wonder they say, "Crime pays, but charity gets you a pauper's grave."

A true saying indeed.

Of course, wealth mattered, but what Fang Hong valued more were these two secret manuals.

Both manuals were techniques that reached the Bone Refinement level!

Fang Hong couldn't figure out why Deng Changliu, a mere guard captain, would possess two Bone Refinement level manuals.

Even more baffling was why, with two such advanced techniques in hand, his strength was so pitiful—he hadn't even reached Flesh Refinement Mastery.

If Deng Changliu knew what he was thinking, he'd probably want to flip his coffin lid off and rise from the dead to kill him.

Do you even hear the bullshit you're saying?

Having advanced techniques means you must be strong?!

Since when was that the rule?

But whether Deng Changliu rose from the dead or not, Fang Hong couldn't care less.

All he knew was that with these two manuals now in hand, his strength was about to take a massive leap.

Of the two techniques, the Iron Leg Skill required not only constant kicking of trees and boulders but also foot-soaking in medicinal baths and secret drugs to aid cultivation.

It was a bit too conspicuous to practice.

He was still in Fenshui Town, so it wasn't convenient to train in that just yet.

The Great Falling Monument Hand, on the other hand, was perfect for his current situation.

All he needed was to prepare some secret medicines and buy enough food and herbs to replenish his blood and energy.

He could train right in his inn room!

And with his Golden Finger's ridiculous effect of granting a fixed 100 proficiency points, he believed it wouldn't be long before he went from a Flesh Refinement Mastery martial artist

to a Bone Refinement level existence!

Hell yeah!