Skull-Crushing Hand Black Pupil

Towering mountains and jagged ridges, a long bridge spanning the river.

At the bridge entrance.

A makeshift roadblock had been set up.

More than a dozen burly men, thick-limbed and radiating a bandit's aura, held blades and axes, intercepting a group of merchants attempting to cross.

The air.

Was thick with the heavy stench of blood.

Several corpses, hacked into pieces, lay on the ground—the guards from the caravan who had dared to resist.

With the guards gone.

The rest of the group, under the coercion of the bandits, huddled together, squatting on the ground and trembling in fear.

But there was one exception.

Wu Dao, his nine-foot-tall, imposing frame draped in black, stood behind the huddled crowd. His physique, like a wild bear of the forest, was exceptionally conspicuous.

He wore a bamboo hat, concealing his unusual black-gold eyes. Through the black veil, he glanced at the dozen or so bandits at the bridge entrance, feeling a slight surprise in his heart:

The strength of this trash is quite impressive this time.

Among the dozen or so bandits.

The leader was a fierce man with thick limbs, a massive build, and the stature of a tiger.

He wore a black eyepatch over one eye and carried a massive mace, possessing quite the air of a Black Wind Stronghold chieftain.

He lived up to that aura, too.

After all.

He possessed the strength of the Divine Strength Realm!

Most of the other bandits were at the Hard-Soft stage, with a few at the Inner Strength stage; all were experts capable of taking on a hundred ordinary men.

This is interesting.

Wu Dao gazed toward the end of the long bridge. Through the swirling clouds and mist, he could faintly see a magnificent city looming over the plains.

Lancang City!

The headquarters of the White Whale Martial Arts Hall!

It was only a few dozen miles away, yet such a powerful band of mountain bandits was still running rampant. This was highly abnormal.

Once inside Canglan City, as long as one paid a certain protection fee to the White Whale Martial Arts Hall, their life and property would be secure.

For this group of mountain bandits to set up roadblocks and rob merchants so unscrupulously was no different than snatching food from the White Whale Martial Arts Hall's plate.

Where did they get the nerve?

Or perhaps...

Someone had lent them the courage.

Wu Dao had his suspicions, but he did not dwell on them, for to him, the result was the same.

"Hey, I'm talking to you! Are you deaf? Take off that bamboo hat. You're such a big guy, don't you have any sense of propriety?"

A crude, arrogant shout rang out, pulling Wu Dao back to reality.

Wu Dao glanced over.

A dark-faced man in the Rigid-Soft Realm was cursing at him, his yellow teeth looking utterly repulsive.

It was no wonder he was so arrogant.

Over these past few days, in order to gather information about this world and avoid drawing too much attention to himself, Wu Dao had been suppressing his blood energy and physical body. He had withdrawn his immense mental pressure deep within and wore a bamboo hat to conceal his features.

It wasn't that he enjoyed playing the pig to eat the tiger.

It was simply that with his current strength, if he didn't conceal himself at all, he would cause a commotion wherever he went, attracting stares like a monkey in a zoo, which he found incredibly annoying.

Not to mention.

With Mao Ba and the Huanglong Temple behind him likely still searching for information on him, it was not yet the time to become 'famous.'

Once he joined the White Whale Martial Arts Hall, it wouldn't matter anymore.

Over the last few days, Wu Dao had figured out the scale of the Huanglong Temple. Although they were an 'immortal dao' sect that was somewhat transcendent, being 'up on the mountain,' they could hardly run rampant throughout Guangqing Prefecture. The White Whale Martial Arts Hall had no reason to fear them.

The people of Huanglong Temple would not openly target a cocoon-breaking expert of the White Whale Martial Arts Hall based on a vague guess.

Because of all this.

To outsiders, as of now.

Wu Dao was just a 'big oaf' with a physique slightly out of the ordinary.

This had led to the situation during this period.

Whenever Wu Dao took the wild paths, nine times out of ten he would run into some bandits looking to make a profit without any investment.

In the end.

It always turned into Wu Dao making a profit off of them instead.

After a few days.

His satchel was nearly stuffed with stacks of silver banknotes, estimated to be worth no less than ten thousand taels of silver—enough to buy a massive pile of high-quality medicinal herbs.

And now.

Someone else was here to deliver money to him.

Although they were a bit noisy and annoying, who could refuse free money?

"Damn it, playing deaf, are you? You'd better be truly deaf, otherwise, I'll cut off your ears to go with my wine!"

Seeing Wu Dao standing there without a word, the black-faced man felt he had lost face in front of his boss. He rolled up his sleeves, took a few long strides, and threw a punch that tore through the air, landing solidly on Wu Dao's chest.

A martial artist of the rigid-soft realm.

After body cultivation, they temper their physical form through various martial arts techniques, possessing raw strength of no less than a thousand catties!

Furthermore, the power of the rigid-soft realm has truly come alive, knowing how to use technique to unleash one's maximum lethality.

A punch thrown in anger.

Even a tiger would be knocked flat.

Clearly.

This black-faced man was aiming to take Wu Dao's life; it seemed that killing a person was as normal to him as eating or drinking.

But.

This time, he had kicked an iron plate.

A literal iron plate, at that.

Thud!

Snap!

The black-faced man's furious punch slammed into Wu Dao's chest, and he immediately felt as if he had struck an indestructible slab of iron. The rebounding force fractured the bones in his hand on the spot, causing him heart-wrenching pain.

"Ah, my..."

The black-faced man was just about to howl in pain and pull back.

Before he could even let out a cry, he retracted his right hand.

Wu Dao's pectoral muscle twitched.

Crack—

Bang!

A massive force surged back into the dark-faced man's arm. His bones and muscles were instantly shattered inch by inch, finally exploding directly into a mist of blood. Fragments of red flesh and white bone splattered onto the faces of the surrounding bandits.

"Ah! My hand! My hand!!"

The horrific, earth-shattering scream drowned out the roaring waves of the river beneath the bridge.

The dark-faced man clutched his bleeding right shoulder, rolling on the ground like a slaughtered pig. After only a few cries, he passed out from the sheer pain.

Crack!

Wu Dao stepped forward. It looked like a casual stride, but his large foot crushed the dark-faced man's chest, grinding his internal organs into pulp.

"Ah!!"

Such a bloody and brutal scene.

Some of the timid women in the caravan screamed, rolled their eyes, and fainted from terror, their pants soaked in urine.

Neigh...

The dozen horses in the caravan seemed to sense the fierce, lethal aura of a predator; they neighed in panic, their legs went weak, and they all collapsed to the ground, unable to rise.

Whoosh~

Just then.

A mountain breeze blew by.

It lifted the veil of Wu Dao's bamboo hat, revealing those inhuman black-gold eyes and two rows of triangular, black-steel shark teeth bared in a grin.

"Oh no, it's Skull-Crushing Hand Black Pupil! This guy is tough, brothers, retreat!"

The bandit leader at the bridge entrance, wearing an eyepatch and carrying a mace, nearly popped his only remaining eye out when he saw those terrifying black pupils. He let out a strange shriek and prepared to flee.

Skull-Crushing Hand Black Pupil...

What the hell is that?

Wu Dao was stunned for a moment. He didn't know when he had earned such a nickname, but now was not the time to think about it.

Bang!

The dragon-elephant trampled, and the earth shook!

Seeing these bandits attempting to scatter and flee, Wu Dao slammed his foot down. The black stone-paved ground at the bridge entrance surged like waves, and the scattered bone fragments of the black-faced man were instantly jolted into the air.

Whoosh!

Wu Dao tore through the air with his large hand, sweeping the airborne bone fragments into his grasp. His micro-level spiritual perception instantly locked onto the bandits in every direction.

Swish, swish, swish—

Bang, bang, bang!

Under the reinforcement of his heroic realm strength, each bone fragment acted like a high-speed projectile. They broke the sound barrier, tore through the air, and emitted bursts of sonic booms.

In the blink of an eye.

Before the dozen or so bandits could even run twenty meters, their heads exploded one after another like watermelons. Mists of blood erupted, and red and white matter sprayed across the sky.

The headless bodies, still acting on nervous impulses, ran for quite a distance before collapsing onto the ground one by one.