Blood Spilled!

Jiang Ye gently rolled his neck and wrists, his joints giving off faint, almost inaudible pops.

Within his body, the force hidden deep in his marrow and organs began to circulate silently, like a ferocious beast roused from hibernation.

The muddleheaded, sluggish old gatekeeper who looked as though he might fall apart at any moment during the day was gone.

What stood in the shadows now was an aged tiger that had shed every outward sign of decline, concealing its claws, fangs, and killing intent as it prepared to hunt.

He did not choose to leave through the main gate.

His gaze swept over the courtyard wall, more than ten feet high, and settled on a spot at the corner concealed by a clump of half-withered bamboo.

Jiang Ye lightly tapped off the ground. His body rose with the graceful ease of a nimble deer, then he flipped deftly over the Martial Academy's high wall and landed soundlessly on the other side.

The rise, the flip, and the landing looked simple and casual, but they had seamlessly combined the lightness and swiftness of the "Deer Form," the agility and unpredictability of the "Ape Form," and the unrestrained grace of the "Bird Form" from the Five Animal Fist, all at his fingertips.

Jiang Ye stood still in the deeper darkness beyond the wall, turning his head slightly to glance at the Martial Academy's high wall, now only a blurred outline in the night.

He turned around and looked into the distance.

That was the western part of the city where the Wild Wolf Gang had entrenched itself, and tonight, it was his hunting ground.

As for why he had chosen the Wild Wolf Gang, it naturally had nothing to do with acts like standing up against injustice or defending Lin Xiaohe.

Purely because, over the past two days, the Wild Wolf Gang had been the topic most frequently and thoroughly discussed by the Martial Academy's Outer Courtyard disciples.

The young disciples' fearful, contemptuous, and angry conversations had pieced together a clear picture in Jiang Ye's mind.

The Wild Wolf Gang's leader was said to be an expert who had stepped into the Dark Strength realm. He was ruthless and rarely showed himself in person.

Under him were four hall masters, each commanding one territory. All possessed Bright Strength, making them a force not to be underestimated in Anxi County.

And Jiang Ye's target tonight was Xu Tao, the hall master responsible for the area around Changxing Street, the closest one to the Martial Academy.

According to the gossiping disciples, there was a gambling house on Changxing Street that did booming business, earning money hand over fist. It was one of the Wild Wolf Gang's major sources of income.

Hall Master Xu Tao normally held court there and lived in an independent little courtyard behind the gambling house.

The information was specific enough, the target clear enough, and the distance suitably convenient.

For an old hunter who needed silver, but even more needed to conceal himself and test his claws and fangs, there could not have been a more ideal first prey.

Xu Tao possessed Bright Strength.

Perfect. He could use him to weigh just how much substance his Tiger Walk Like Sickness truly had.

He had been looking for a "human post" to practice on these past two days.

Beneath the black cloth covering his face, Jiang Ye's lips curved into a cold smile.

He did not linger. With a flicker of his body, he silently slipped into the tangled shadows of the alleys toward Changxing Street.

Changxing Street.

"This is the place."

Hidden in the shadows, Jiang Ye narrowed his eyes at the brightly lit gambling house in the distance.

Like a crouching tiger, he slowly approached along the darkness. Reaching the adjoining courtyard wall, he lightly pushed off the ground and climbed onto the roof like an ape.

In the brightly lit courtyard behind the gambling house.

"Master Xu, the trap was set tight. Gambler Yang is finished this time."

A Wild Wolf Gang member in gray, with shrewdness in his brows and eyes, bent respectfully as he reported to the burly man seated in a grand chair.

The man in gray spoke in a fawning tone. "Once tonight is over, his wife and daughter will both have to be handed over to us as payment."

The "Master Xu" he addressed was none other than Wild Wolf Gang hall master Xu Tao.

He was built like a bear, his face full of fleshy folds. A vicious dark-red scar slashed diagonally from his left temple to his brow bone, lending him an even fiercer air.

His robe hung open, revealing a hairy chest. Two polished iron balls rolled in his hand. Hearing this, he bared a mouthful of large yellow teeth in a grin.

"Gambler Yang's sallow-faced hag turns my stomach just looking at her. Toss her straight to the broker and sell her off."

He paused. A lewd gleam flashed through his eyes, making the scar on his face twist. "But his daughter... I happened to see her once a few days ago. Tsk, the little thing is quite fresh-looking. So tender you could pinch water from her."

He leaned forward and lowered his voice, excitement sickeningly thick in his tone.

"Send her to me first. Once I personally 'open her eyes' and have my fill, it won't be too late to sell her to the broker."

The gray-clothed gang member immediately understood. An equally lewd smile spread over his face as he nodded repeatedly. "Heh, having Master Xu personally 'open her eyes' is a blessing she cultivated in her past life! Others could only dream of it!"

"If you handle it well, you'll naturally get your share of the rewards."

Xu Tao leaned back in his chair, looking thoroughly pleased, as though he could already taste that "sweet freshness."

"Thank you, Master Xu! Thank you for your patronage!"

The gray-clothed gang member bowed again and again in excitement, then carefully backed out through the door and gently pulled it shut.

The room fell quiet once more, leaving only the faint sound of iron balls rolling and rubbing in Xu Tao's palm.

He narrowed his eyes. The image of the girl's delicate, pale, frightened face grew ever clearer in his mind, and a wicked fire abruptly flared up in his chest, making him burn with heat.

"Damn it, that little bitch has stirred up my fire..." Xu Tao spat, casually tossing the iron balls onto the table with a dull clunk.

He patted his thigh and prepared to rise. "Looks like I'll have to find Cui'er at the Red Joy Pavilion to put out this fire first tonight..."

The thought had barely formed, and his body had not yet fully left the chair—

Creak.

The door silently opened inward by a crack.

The night wind slipped in through the gap, making the lamp flame on the table sway violently as shadows trembled wildly across the room.

"You brat..." Xu Tao frowned instinctively, thinking the gray-clothed subordinate had returned because he had failed to handle things properly.

Impatience entered his voice as he looked toward the door.

Yet in the next instant—

A martial artist's nearly instinctive sense of danger struck him like a bucket of ice water dumped over his head.

Every hair on Xu Tao's body stood upright, and a bone-piercing chill shot up his spine!

Something was wrong!

The doorway was empty. There was none of his subordinate's usual timid, hunched figure.

Only an inky darkness so dense it seemed capable of swallowing even light silently overflowed through the crack in the door.

His massive body instantly tightened like iron. All his laziness and lewdness vanished, replaced by total vigilance and a beastly ferocity ready to explode.

His right hand silently reached for the hidden short blade at his waist. His left foot withdrew half a step, his center of gravity sank, and he assumed a fighting stance.

"Who—"

His chest swelled as a low roar, mixed with shock, rage, and killing intent, was about to burst from his throat.

At that very moment, swift as a spark from flint!

The figure hidden in the darkness beyond the door moved!

There was no warning, no sound, not even a clear initiating motion.

It was as though that thick darkness itself had suddenly condensed and collapsed, transforming into a shadow carrying a bloody wind that pounced with speed beyond the limit of ordinary sight!

In the reflection of Xu Tao's abruptly contracting pupils, the thing rushing toward him was not human-shaped, but a blurred yet terrifyingly real white-browed tiger!

Its fangs were bared, its bloody stench struck his face, and it bore the brutality of the king of the mountains and the crushing pressure of death, as though it meant to swallow him whole!

"A tiger?!"

Xu Tao's mind shook violently, and his scalp nearly exploded.

Though he had licked blood from the edge of a blade for years, that sudden, horrifying sight still left him dazed for the briefest instant.

But it was only an instant.

Years of fighting experience snapped him awake at once—where would a tiger come from?!

It was clearly an attacker with black cloth over his face and a hunched body!

That frightening illusion had been caused by the terrifying "momentum" and mental pressure carried by his opponent's pounce!

Yet in that momentary lapse, life and death had already been decided!

The tiger-like figure had closed to within less than three feet of him, so fast that only a blurred black shadow remained.

"You're courting death!"

Xu Tao's eyes nearly split apart. Amid shock and fury, the Bright Strength he had cultivated through bitter training erupted explosively in the face of danger.

His blood surged and his muscles bulged. The right hand gripping the spike became a serpent-like black gleam, tearing through the air with a piercing shriek as it stabbed straight toward the attacker's heart.

That thrust was vicious, accurate, and fast, gathering the essence of a lifetime of killing into one strike meant to end his enemy at once.

Yet the attacker's response to that tricky, ruthless thrust, with no room to spare between them, strangely defied all common sense.

The fierce tiger-like pouncing posture suddenly changed!

Like a nimble ape twisting its body, like willow catkins drifting on the wind.

With unimaginable flexibility and agility, the attacker's body shifted and spun by the tiniest margin within that cramped space.

Slash—

The poisoned short spike grazed past the attacker's chest, cutting only a small piece of coarse cloth and carrying away a few strands of fiber. It did not touch flesh in the slightest.

A hair's breadth apart, separated by life and death!

Xu Tao's all-out, certain killing thrust had already run its course.

Before new force could arise, the old force was about to fade. It was the most vulnerable instant, an opening too brief to recover from.

And this was precisely the moment the attacker had been waiting for!

Borrowing the remaining momentum of that strange sidestep and spin, the attacker's left fist, already poised to strike, shot out like a sharp claw hidden beneath the slack fur of a sick tiger.

There was no howling wind, no thunder of sinews and bones.

Only a sense of solidity so utterly restrained, yet so heavy it was suffocating.

Where the fist pointed, the air itself seemed compressed and frozen.

Bang!

A sound that was not loud, yet was incomparably dull and solid, exploded beside Xu Tao's ear.

The last thing he saw was the pair of calm, unruffled eyes above the black cloth.

Then boundless darkness, accompanied by indescribable agony, instantly swallowed all his consciousness.

Xu Tao's huge head, covered in fat and scars, caved in and warped beneath an irresistible, overwhelming force like a ripe watermelon struck head-on by an iron hammer—

Splat!

Red and white matter mixed with shattered bone burst gorgeously and horribly beneath the dim lamplight.

The headless, massive body stood rigid for a brief moment before crashing backward like a mountain collapsing and a jade pillar toppling, hitting the floor with a heavy thud that stirred fine dust from the ground.

"Weaker than I imagined."

Looking at the headless body on the ground, Jiang Ye shook his head slightly.