Knocking on the Gate with Dark Strength!

The night was like a curtain.

Outside the Rain Listening Pavilion at Lake Heart Pavilion, a hunched figure, nearly blending into the gray shadows, lay in wait beneath the eaves of the adjacent Water Pavilion.

Jiang Ye's face had long since returned to its usual aged and wooden expression. The true essence of the Spirit Ape Thousand Changes had receded, reverting him to the appearance of an unremarkable old gatekeeper, save for those eyes, which remained exceptionally clear in the dim light.

He had been keeping watch here for nearly an hour.

He had watched with his own eyes as the candlelight inside the room was extinguished, listened as the heart-wrenching wails gradually turned into stifled sobs, and finally settled into a deathly silence.

He had saved them from falling into the clutches of Zhang Xu, but everything that followed... had pushed him into an even more complex quagmire.

Finally, after an agonizingly long wait, the door was pushed open just a crack.

Two slender figures, supporting each other, moved out from the room with extreme caution, their demeanor as fearful as birds startled by the mere twang of a bowstring.

It was Liu Yiyi and Su Yan.

Liu Yiyi's face remained frighteningly pale and her eyes were red and swollen, but the look in them no longer held the shattered emptiness of before; instead, it was condensed into a cold, calm vigilance.

Su Yan was no better, with tear tracks still staining her face.

The gentle, bright smile she once wore had vanished, replaced by a forced composure and deep exhaustion. She clutched Liu Yiyi's arm tightly, her gaze constantly scanning the surroundings, wary of the slightest disturbance.

"Finally out..."

Jiang Ye breathed a silent sigh of relief, his mind, which had been taut as a bowstring, relaxing just a fraction.

What he had feared most was Liu Yiyi's cold-on-the-outside, rigid-on-the-inside, and fiercely proud nature.

This girl had been different since childhood; she rarely showed her emotions, as if nothing could truly shake her frozen heart, and she held her own purity in the highest regard.

Jiang Ye had truly feared that after encountering such a massive upheaval, she would be instantly consumed by despair and commit some irreversible, desperate act.

Su Yan came from a wealthy family with strict upbringing, and naturally, she also placed extreme importance on her reputation and purity.

The bursts of sorrowful wailing from the room earlier had confirmed this.

Now that he saw both of their emotions were relatively stable and there were no signs of suicidal tendencies, a heavy stone finally fell from Jiang Ye's heart.

"Then I, too, should return to break through to the Dark Strength realm."

Jiang Ye mused silently, slowly withdrawing his gaze.

At this moment, Liu Yiyi and Su Yan were at their most sensitive and fragile, like startled young deer; any extra attention or tracking might be keenly detected by them.

Moreover, with Liu Yiyi's strength in the Dark Strength realm, there were few people in Anxi County, aside from those at the Transformation Strength level, who could pose a threat to them.

He took one last deep look at the two slender figures, a complex emotion flashing through his aged eyes.

Then, he lingered no longer. His form seemed to melt into the pitch-black night, sliding silently from the eaves. With a few leaps, he was already far from Lake Heart Pavilion.

"Hiss... I'm dying... how can it... hurt this much..."

Su Yan's delicate brows were tightly knit, her teeth biting down hard on her lower lip, almost drawing blood.

With every step she took, a searing, strange pain became clearer, causing fine beads of cold sweat to seep from her forehead.

It even made her legs feel weak and trembling.

She stole a glance at Liu Yiyi beside her, seeing that although she still held her back straight and her expression was icy, her pale lips were also pressed tightly together, and every step she took was exceptionally slow and heavy.

Clearly, the other girl's situation was no better.

The two walked one after the other, not supporting each other, yet maintaining a tacit, unspoken distance, as if getting any closer would force them to see their own current disheveled and wretched state reflected in the other.

About the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, they finally managed to support themselves out of the grounds of Lake Heart Pavilion and onto a secluded path connecting to the shore of Mirror Lake.

"Hmm?!"

Liu Yiyi, walking in front, suddenly paused, her cold eyes narrowing sharply as they locked onto a spot on the distant shore. "There... there seems to be someone on the bank."

Hearing this, Su Yan also forced herself to focus, looking in the direction of her gaze.

Sure enough, on a rocky beach not far from the water, a figure could be vaguely seen slumped on the ground, motionless, with half of their body submerged in the shallow water, swaying gently with the ripples.

The two exchanged a look and decided to walk over to investigate.

When they finally drew near and saw the face of the person slumped there—

The blood in their bodies seemed to freeze in an instant.

Immediately following, like a dormant volcano erupting, boundless rage and bone-deep hatred surged into their minds like magma.

Because the figure slumped on the shore was none other than Zhang Xu!

Yet, his appearance now held not a shred of the arrogance or bluster of the Zhang Family's second young master.

The corners of his mouth were smeared with dark red blood mixed with mud and sand, and bloody foam continued to spill out with his extremely shallow breaths.

At his chest, his clothing and the metallic inner armor vaguely visible beneath it were deeply sunken, his sternum shattered.

His face was as pale as gold paper, his breath as thin as a thread, the very picture of a life on the verge of extinction.

Clearly, after being blasted into the lake by the white-haired old man's punch earlier, he had not died immediately thanks to the protection of his close-fitting soft armor, and had instead struggled with the instinct to survive, desperately swimming back to the shore.

"Good! Good! Good!"

Liu Yiyi repeated the word three times, her voice as cold as a polar gale.

She laughed out of sheer fury, but there was not a shred of warmth in that smile, only monstrous killing intent and the thrill of vengeance. "This animal... he actually still has a breath left! Heaven truly has eyes!"

In her rage, she instantly curled her right hand into a fist, ready to smash it down onto Zhang Xu's already sunken temple.

If this punch landed, never mind that he was currently on the verge of death; even in his prime, he would have had no chance of survival.

"Wait, Yiyi! Don't be in such a rush to kill him!"

At the critical moment, Su Yan reached out and grabbed Liu Yiyi's poised wrist.

Her voice was equally cold, yet it held a trace of suppressed, almost cruel composure that Liu Yiyi lacked.

"What do you mean?"

Liu Yiyi's fist paused. She tilted her head slightly, her gaze toward Su Yan filled not only with raging fire but also a hint of impatience at being interrupted.

"Killing him just like this is letting him off too easily!"

Su Yan released her hand, her eyes piercing Zhang Xu's mangled body like ice picks. Her voice was low and clear, carrying a chilling intensity:

"There is actually a way to deal with an animal like this that will make living far worse than death for him!"

She paused, a complex light of reason and hatred flickering in her eyes, and continued to analyze:

"Besides, have you thought about it? If he just dies here without explanation, and in such a heavily wounded state..."

"The Zhang Family will definitely bite back and claim that we were the ones who harmed Zhang Xu."

"Therefore, before this animal breathes his last, we should take him to the Zhang Family and demand an explanation!"

"Of course, we will omit many of the details, focusing instead on how Zhang Xu plotted to frame us..."

Hearing this, Liu Yiyi's boiling killing intent cooled slightly, and she fell silent for a moment.

What Su Yan said was not without reason; Zhang Xu's status was special, after all, and his death would never go unnoticed.

She stared at Su Yan and said coldly, "Then tell me, what method is there to make this animal suffer more alive than dead?"

"Dealing with an animal like this is simple!"

Su Yan's gaze suddenly turned incredibly sharp, carrying a ferocity that Liu Yiyi had never seen before—one that was almost savage.

Without another word, she stepped forward, raised her right foot, and channeled her strength to stomp down hard on his groin.

The kick was fast and ruthless; it could have shattered a stone, let alone fragile flesh.

Splat.

It sounded as if something had been crushed.

From this moment on, Zhang Xu was no longer a man.

Seeing this, even the bloodthirsty Liu Yiyi couldn't help but freeze, her pupils contracting as if she were seeing this young lady of the Su Family—who had always presented herself as gentle and kind—for the very first time.

"Hah... hah..."

The excruciating pain even jolted the unconscious Zhang Xu awake.

On the verge of death, he didn't even have the strength to open his eyes, only able to let out a whimpering plea for mercy:

"Please... please don't kill me..."

Meanwhile.

Inside the gatehouse of the Martial Academy.

Jiang Ye had already returned quietly.

He shed his outer garment, which was stained with night dew and the fishy scent of the lake, and changed into another set of clothes that were equally worn but clean. He sat cross-legged on the hard wooden bed.

After a night of intense exertion, the blood, energy, and Bright Strength that had been overflowing within his body had not been depleted.

Instead, under the stimulation of a strange external force and his own extreme emotional tempering, they had become even more solid and pure, like refined iron forged repeatedly, stripped of the last trace of impurities and radiating a restrained, dangerous luster.

"The time to break through to Dark Strength is now!"

With no distractions in his mind, he whispered to himself and moved his body into the stance of the Five Animal Fist.

The energy within him, which had been boiling to its limit, launched a final, natural assault against that invisible yet sturdy barrier.

Boom!

It felt as if a fire dragon were coursing through his body. The skin on Jiang Ye's body became terrifyingly hot, his breathing grew ragged, and the air he exhaled felt as scorching as steam.

Bright Strength is released externally; Dark Strength settles internally.

This was the process of Jiang Ye's internal power permeating his entire body and sinking into his bone marrow.

He did not know how much time had passed.

The red heat on Jiang Ye's skin slowly faded, and his breathing gradually steadied.

The moment he opened his eyes again, the overflowing brilliance from before was gone, replaced by a depth that was restrained to the extreme.

Dark Strength, achieved!