Thud...
Ning Da's clasped hands had yet to touch Shi Wen.
When Shi Wen's palms, red as molten lava, melted through the flesh and bone of his neck, sending his head rolling across the ground.
Blood sprayed several yards high, dyeing Shi Wen's face red!!
Thud.
The two bodies fell in opposite directions.
Shi Wen had exhausted his strength and collapsed onto the ground, gulping down fresh air.
The flesh all over his body had sunk deep against his bones, and his face was ashen. It was obvious that his vitality, energy, and spirit had been utterly depleted.
If not for the rise and fall of his gaunt chest, anyone would have thought he was already dead!
After the intense battle ended.
His taut nerves finally relaxed, and the adrenaline surging through him receded, making him feel an indescribable agony for the first time.
Every part of his body ached and swelled. His joints were sore and bloated, bones in many places had fractured, and more importantly, activating fiftyfold Burning True Intent just now had drained all his vitality, energy, and spirit in an instant!
Even though it had lasted only a second, he had nearly squeezed himself dry!!
"Looks like I can't even manage five seconds as a real man. Fiftyfold Burning True Intent is utterly outrageous. One second more and it would have sucked me into a dried corpse. I need to be cautious about activating True Intent at high multipliers in the future."
"Hah... If True Intent hadn't been my trump card, and if he hadn't been careless enough to let me charge in and fight him at close range, I would have died here today."
"True Intent isn't omnipotent. If I can't even get close to my opponent's body, then even the cleverest housewife cannot cook without rice. When I get the chance, I need to find a movement technique to train in."
Shi Wen took a deep breath.
He did his best to circulate the qi and blood within him, recovering from his injuries.
As he reviewed the battle, he pondered, "When I unleash my full strength, every strike carries several thousand jin of force. According to what Senior Sister Li said, even the weakest Origin Blood Realm martial artist has a foundation of a thousand jin of strength. I shouldn't have been unable to hurt him."
"Yet when that man got slightly serious, his strength was no less than ten thousand jin. If he erupted with all his power in that three-meter-tall form, he could probably easily unleash tens of thousands of jin of force, right?"
"An ordinary Origin Blood Realm martial artist absolutely couldn't reach such a level!"
"He definitely wasn't as simple as having condensed only one Blood Membrane, as he kept claiming. Before he died, more than a dozen dense black-red patterns emerged all over his body. That was likely a manifestation of his Origin Blood cultivation. Unfortunately, I know too little about the Origin Blood Realm. I don't know what stage he had actually reached."
"Origin Blood martial artists really are terrifying. Without Burning True Intent, I couldn't have shaken an Origin Blood Realm martial artist at all!"
After a while.
Shi Wen sat up, gasping for breath.
A glimmer of survival after disaster flashed through his eyes.
There was bitterness there as well.
Who could have imagined that it had begun with him killing a few attackers?
Yet later, he killed more and more of them, even encountering an Origin Blood Realm martial artist.
If he hadn't possessed Burning True Intent, he would certainly have died at the hands of this soldier of unknown origin!
"Damn it, didn't Zhang Sheng say only second-rate forces had Origin Blood Realm martial artists? A Boat Gang like the Xingshui Gang, which doesn't even have a Blood-Coagulation Realm martial artist and doesn't even qualify as third-rate, actually gathered more than a dozen Blood-Tempering Realm martial artists, two Blood-Coagulation Realm martial artists, and one Origin Blood Realm martial artist? Such a force would stand firm even among second-rate forces, wouldn't it?"
"Sure enough, much of the information is inaccurate. Only by experiencing it myself can I know what the situation truly is."
"The Origin Blood Realm... It seems only by entering the Origin Blood Realm can I gain some ability to protect myself in Black Cloud County. Blood Coagulation is still far too weak."
Shi Wen coughed, vomiting out fragments of his internal organs.
Enduring the stabbing pain and soreness.
He reset each of the broken bones in his body, while he pierced fist-sized splits in his flesh with wooden splinters to keep them from falling open.
Forcing his spirits up, he rose and took several waterproof bags from the waist of the headless corpse.
He then searched through the ruins, taking away anything useful that he saw!
The sack on his back bulged full, showing that his gains were considerable.
Afterward, Shi Wen piled the corpses together and broke apart some firewood.
He intended to burn the bodies all to ash.
But who would have thought.
At that moment.
The sound of a group of people hurrying along came from the distant streets and alleys.
Shi Wen could only hurriedly throw a torch onto the corpse pile covered in dry firewood.
Then he flipped into a deep alley.
And vanished from the area.
"My lord, this is where continuous sounds of fighting had been coming from, though it has gone quiet now."
A vast swath of torches surged in like a long serpent.
Their flames soared into the sky.
Illuminating this pitch-black stretch of ruins.
The moment they clearly saw the place.
Everyone present sucked in a breath of cold air. Terror flashed across their faces, their scalps tingled, and some constables and martial artists, unable to bear it physically, turned and vomited in the corners!
The sound of retching rang out one after another.
"What happened?"
Zhou Hongzhi entered with a saber at his waist and shouted, "You are all seasoned runners. How could a sight like this scare you into such a state?"
His gaze swept across the scene, then his steps suddenly froze.
His pupils contracted!
Within the collapsed courtyard walls, the ground was riddled with craters and pits.
Blood and chunks of flesh hung everywhere.
Broken corpses had been piled up like little burial mounds.
Heads with eyes still wide open stared straight at them!!
Faced with such a horrifying scene,
Even though he was a Blood-Coagulation Realm martial artist,
His scalp tingled at the sight!
Brutal!!
The methods were incomparably brutal. Every corpse had been blasted apart by immense force.
He had even accidentally stepped on an intestine. Even he had never seen such a nauseating and bloody scene before!!!
"What is going on? We could hear you vomiting from a long way off."
"You're all old hands from the County Office. Are you worthy of the uniforms you're wearing if you behave like this?"
"Who could have acted with such vicious cruelty? Hiss... So many corpses. Damn it, these bodies either had their heads twisted off or were smashed into pieces. Who exactly did this? Such savage methods..."
The four or five Capital Office Envoys who entered and saw this scene.
Could not help but suck in a breath of cold air!
"What are you standing around for? Do you know who was fighting here?"
At that moment, a burly figure walked in.
His face was covered in thick, curling whiskers, and a scar left by a saber slash ran across his forehead. His entire bearing was fierce and menacing.
"Lord Yang!"
"Greetings, Lord Yang."
"Greetings, Vice Lieutenant Yang..."
The surrounding constables hurriedly saluted. Even Capital Office Envoys of the Blood-Coagulation Realm like Zhou Hongzhi called out a greeting.
The newcomer was Yang Chengwu, Vice Lieutenant of the County Office and one of its Origin Blood experts. He was specifically responsible for managing Origin Blood Realm martial artists in this part of the city. Rumor had it that he was an expert who had condensed three Blood Membranes, with a resounding reputation in Black Cloud County.
This man was exceedingly brutal and greedy.
He often joined forces with certain gangs and Boat Gangs to prey upon the common people, scraping away the people's fat and marrow.
He also kept a number of thugs and clerks under his command, specializing in moneylending, gambling houses, brothels, and other businesses. His vile reputation had spread far and wide!
"My lord, we heard movement here earlier, but it was too great, and we did not dare act rashly. After reporting to you, we waited for your arrival before handling matters here."
One of the Capital Office Envoys quickly reported.
"Mm."
Yang Chengwu swept his eyes over the area, then hooked a steel saber from the ground up with his foot. Studying a special mark on it, surprise appeared on his face. "The Black Crow Army? These people are deserters from Tiannan Prefecture!"
This waist saber was longer, narrower, and sharper than those commonly seen on the market, with a blood groove carved into it.
Stamped upon the blade was a rough, ferocious mark resembling a bird. It was unmistakably the Black Crow Emblem representing the Black Crow Army.
Greed surfaced on Yang Chengwu's face.
These heads were all gleaming silver!
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