Under the moonlight, in a side courtyard of the He Mansion.
Fang Hong stood with his saber raised, an icy aura radiating from his entire body.
The moonlight shining upon the long saber, stained by blood, reflected an even more desolate and ghostly gleam.
Across from Fang Hong, every muscle in Deng Changliu's body was taut as he stared at Fang Hong with extreme vigilance.
Though Deng Changliu appeared to be poised to strike at any moment.
In truth, only he himself knew.
The muscles in his legs had already tightened to their limit, ready to explode as he fled at any moment.
His opponent was stronger than him, and he also held a blade.
What was he supposed to fight with—his head?
Whether he could keep his life was still a question.
The next second, the instant a fierce glint flashed through Fang Hong's eyes.
Deng Changliu immediately sensed the shift in Fang Hong's aura.
The muscles in his legs, tightened to the utmost limit, suddenly erupted with tremendous force.
With a dull bang, his entire body shot toward the Moon Gate not far away.
Fang Hong's lips twisted savagely. "Trying to run?"
"Can you get away?"
He stomped heavily as well, crushing Deng Changliu with the realm of Flesh Refinement Mastery.
Fang Hong erupted with even greater power than Deng Changliu and chased after him at a faster speed.
Long saber in hand, the instant he caught up behind Deng Changliu.
He delivered a horizontal slash—Sweep the Thousand Armies!
Though Deng Changliu did not turn around, the intense sense of danger prickling against his back, along with decades of experience.
Made him instinctively lower his head and roll across the ground.
The instant he ducked and rolled, a chilling blade-light swept horizontally through the air, missing him by less than an inch.
But Fang Hong had already cultivated the Military Formation Saber Art to perfection.
His blade transitions were far faster than Deng Changliu had imagined.
When he saw Deng Changliu lower his head to evade.
Before Deng Changliu had even rolled onto the ground, the muscles in Fang Hong's arm gave a slight tremor.
The direction of force in his arm changed instantly, as did the flow and eruption of the inner strength within his body.
Then Fang Hong's entire body followed the momentum of that horizontal slash and spun in a circle.
As he turned, the blade changed from a horizontal cut to a downward diagonal slash, then swept upward with the motion.
Step Up and Lift!
"Damn it!"
Faced with Fang Hong's ferocious chained change of moves, Deng Changliu's pupils abruptly contracted as he rolled on the ground.
He only had time to thrust out those hands, which had become even thicker, their knuckles enormous.
Then, with a splurt, those hands—with their swollen knuckles, thick fingers, and even somewhat twisted muscles.
Were cleanly severed and fell to the ground.
The gap in strength between them was simply too great, and Fang Hong also held a long saber.
Before one tempered one's flesh to a sufficiently powerful degree, flesh and blood could never withstand the sharpness of weapons.
Two jets of blood instantly sprayed from the stumps of Deng Changliu's severed arms.
Deng Changliu opened his mouth wide and let out a shrill scream.
But before that scream could ring out, a flash of light stabbed straight through his throat.
Before the scream could sound, it had already been cut short.
With a splurt, Fang Hong pulled the saber from Deng Changliu's throat.
Then, with a casual stroke, he completely severed Deng Changliu's neck.
Though Fang Hong had changed moves in rapid succession throughout the process.
Because of the overwhelming difference in strength, the entire battle had actually been exceedingly brief.
It had lasted only a few breaths.
Compared to wiping out the wild wolves in that wolf pack, killing people seemed absurdly easy.
Afterward, Fang Hong went to another room and slaughtered all of Deng Changliu's remaining disciples.
Thus!
Chen Lao San's entire family, Qian Chunsheng and his master and disciple, Scholar He's entire family, along with the steward, servants, guards, and forty-seven others, had all been executed!
His great vengeance was finally avenged!!
At that moment, Fang Hong felt his mind become utterly light and clear.
A joy of immense freedom filled his heart.
After standing silently for a moment, Fang Hong's heart suddenly skipped a beat as he recalled the strange state of Deng Changliu's hands.
"That should have been caused by the martial art Deng Changliu cultivated, right?"
He glanced at Deng Changliu's corpse. That sweat-soaked undershirt clearly did not look like it could hide anything.
So Fang Hong hurried into the room Deng Changliu had emerged from earlier.
He had no choice. He was desperately lacking martial arts manuals right now!
Not long afterward, Fang Hong looked at the two secret manuals he had found in Deng Changliu's room, satisfaction and excitement appearing on his face.
Of the two manuals, one was Iron Leg Skill, while the other was Great Falling Monument Hand.
"I finally have new martial arts to cultivate!"
And they were even more profound than the Horse Stance and Military Formation Saber Art!
Fang Hong then left the He Mansion with the two manuals and the silver he had looted from it.
The following morning.
Fang Hong was once again seated in that familiar spot at Xuan Yue Inn, savoring fine food.
As he ate, he watched the constables below continuously moving through the streets and conducting inspections, while he himself appeared thoroughly relaxed.
Though Scholar He was not the richest man in Fenshui Town, he could still be considered a landlord of middling wealth there.
Overnight, his entire household had been massacred, with more than forty people dead.
The news instantly set off an uproar throughout Fenshui Town.
The entire town had immediately been placed under lockdown.
But none of that had anything to do with Fang Hong anymore.
A whole night had already passed.
If it had been an ordinary perpetrator, they would likely have left Fenshui Town long ago.
And based on the traces left behind, there was simply no way to trace the crime back to Fang Hong.
So Fang Hong was not worried in the slightest.
Even though the constables below were continuously conducting inspections.
In truth, judging from their somewhat perfunctory actions, it was clear that they also held no hope of finding the culprit.
As for the so-called lockdown, it was even more like child's play.
Thanks to the flourishing river transport along the Fen River tributary, Fenshui Town had prosperous commerce, with countless merchants and goods passing through.
A lockdown would affect river transport and merchants, and the other wealthy families, merchants, and even commoners would continuously exert pressure.
Whether this lockdown could last half a day was questionable.
After casually sweeping his gaze over the street below a few times, Fang Hong's eyes returned to the crude System Panel before him.
Great Falling Monument Hand: Level One (1/100) Iron Leg Skill: Beginner (1/100)
Fang Hong did not look at martial arts like the Horse Stance at all. His gaze was entirely drawn to these two techniques.
"What a windfall!"
An incomparably excited light flickered in Fang Hong's eyes.
"Now I can finally take off a little!"
Even Fang Hong himself had not expected this harvest to be so great.
A mere guard from the He Mansion had actually dropped two martial arts manuals for him!
And that did not even include the more than one thousand taels' worth of silver notes, gold, and silver he had looted from the He Mansion.
Even that was only a portion of the He Mansion's wealth.
There was a great deal of silver he simply could not carry away, and the He Mansion also possessed many businesses and fields that could not be looted.
Damn it, these landlords were truly rich!
And yet Scholar He had still been eyeing the Fang family's two fertile fields.
Fucking greedy!
This truly was a world that devoured people!
Commoners could barely make a living, yet merely looting a middling landlord in a town.
Had yielded gains beyond Fang Hong's imagination.
No wonder people said that murder and arson brought golden belts, while building bridges and repairing roads left no corpses behind.
It truly was a supreme truth.
Of course, money was important, but what Fang Hong valued more were these two secret manuals.
Both of these manuals were martial arts that reached the Bone Refinement level!
Fang Hong could not understand why Deng Changliu, a mere head guard, possessed two Bone Refinement-level manuals.
What he understood even less was why Deng Changliu, despite possessing two such advanced martial arts.
Was so weak that he had not even reached Flesh Refinement Mastery.
If Deng Changliu knew what Fang Hong was thinking, he would probably want to flip open his coffin lid, rise from the dead, and kill someone.
Do you even hear the bullshit you're saying?
Having advanced martial arts meant one had to be powerful?!
What kind of logic was that!
But Fang Hong did not care whether Deng Changliu rose from the dead or not.
He only knew that with these two martial arts, his strength could undergo a tremendous leap.
Of the two, cultivating the Iron Leg Skill required not only constant kicking of trees and boulders, but also medicinal foot baths and secret medicines to assist the training.
Cultivating it would attract some attention.
He was still in Fenshui Town, so it was not convenient for him to begin cultivating it openly.
Great Falling Monument Hand, on the other hand, was perfect for him to cultivate right now.
He only needed to prepare a certain amount of secret medicine and purchase enough food and medicinal ingredients to replenish his vitality and energy.
Then he could cultivate it in his inn room!
And with the heaven-defying fixed one hundred proficiency effect of his Golden Finger assisting him.
He believed that before long, he would leap directly from a martial artist at Flesh Refinement Mastery.
Into an existence at the Bone Refinement realm!
Awesome!
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