Utterly Wicked

A wu, meaning dark earth.

In the Coiling Dragon Mountain region, most houses were roofed with gray tiles. The tiles spread in dark, continuous swathes, so the character wu could be understood as a village settlement where the rooftops ran together.

A fort was something that protected the land. It could be understood as a structure built to defend its homeland.

Thus, a fortified village was a residential settlement with military defenses.

In these vast settlements, villages were linked together, their walls layered one behind another. Each village had a watchtower, with a drum hanging inside.

If any village spotted the enemy, its drum could be beaten at once. The surrounding villages would hear it and take up the drumming in turn. More distant villages would hear them and do the same, and the villages beyond those would continue the chain.

In this way, the sound of the drums could spread a hundred li in an instant. Militia forces stationed at strategic points would then mobilize to encircle and wipe out the bandits.

This entire system formed the basic military-defense structure of the fortified villages scattered across the lawless Coiling Dragon Mountain region.

Now, Li Hai stood at the outermost layer of the Zhou Family Fort's defenses—by its outer rampart.

A rampart was an earthen mound, narrow at the top and broad at the base, built by piling up clods of earth.

A wall was earth that had been cut and shaped. Using blades and axes to carve the earth into smooth, steep faces made for a higher-grade rampart—stronger, straighter, and more even.

The outer rampart of Zhou Family Fort was therefore a winding, unbroken wall of earth and stone.

Beyond the stone wall lay a winding dirt road, broad fields, and farmers and oxen and sheep moving here and there among the furrows.

Li Hai had not set out at night. He had waited until the sun rose and daylight brightened before coming to Zhou Family Fort.

The reason was simple: he had no desire to resort to a cowardly assassination.

Li Hai wanted to butcher Zhou Yugen and his family in broad daylight, before everyone's eyes, like slaughtering dogs in the street.

After arriving at Zhou Family Fort, Li Hai stood by the road. Passersby and merchants began unconsciously detouring around him, not daring to come close.

Nearly everyone who took a detour felt their hearts fill with fear at Li Hai's towering, powerfully built frame.

Yet many simple country folk were not especially afraid. They merely marveled at him.

An old farmer carrying a hoe, for instance, passed by and spoke to Li Hai without the slightest fear:

"Young man, you're a real strapping fellow."

Li Hai happened to want to ask for directions, so he stood by the roadside and chatted with the old farmer.

"Old sir, have you finished your work?"

"Finished, finished. This old man's got little land, so there's less work to do."

"Is the land yours?"

"No, no."

The old farmer shook his head repeatedly. "More than nine-tenths of the land in Zhou Family Fort belongs to the Zhou Family. I'm only a tenant farmer."

"You're a tenant farmer? How much rent do you have to pay each year?" Li Hai asked.

"About..." The old farmer held up his fingers. "Seventy-five percent."

Li Hai frowned at once. "That's highway robbery. How do you feed your family?"

"You can't say things like that!"

The old farmer waved both hands, his face stricken with fear. "If the Zhou Family hears you, this old man will be done for."

Then he sighed. "This old man has no family. I'm all alone."

"What happened to your family?"

"They all died. Someone killed them."

"The Zhou Family?"

The old farmer fell silent for a moment, then said, "If my grandson were still alive, he'd be about your age now. But he probably wouldn't have grown as strong as you."

Li Hai nodded. "Old sir, do you know which way Ox-Horn Town is?"

"Easy. Follow this road straight ahead without turning. You'll get there in a few li."

"Does everyone in the Zhou Family live in Ox-Horn Town?"

"Ox-Horn Town is the most prosperous place in all of Zhou Family Fort, so the whole Zhou Family lives there."

"Understood."

Li Hai nodded, then added, "Old sir, if you have time today, go to Ox-Horn Town. I'll slaughter the entire Zhou Family there in the open, and avenge you and everyone else."

"Huh?!" The old farmer stared, dumbfounded. "Young man, what... what are you saying? This old man... this old man doesn't understand."

Li Hai said nothing more. He only smiled, then turned and took off toward Ox-Horn Town in a single step, leaving a trail of heavy afterimages. The old farmer and the passersby stood frozen, staring after him.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

Along the long yellow-earth road, heavy thuds rang out again and again among the fields, and hollows burst open in the soil one after another.

The people on the road stared in fright, but could not see anyone. It was as if some invisible beast had just flashed past, never crossing into the human world.

They did not know that Li Hai was running, racing toward Ox-Horn Town at over fifty zhang per second.

If he had run down the road, every last passerby would have been smashed to pieces, their bodies mangled beyond recognition.

Fortunately, Li Hai was not that utterly deranged. To avoid harming the innocent, he raced only through the empty fields beside the road.

Even so, the gale he stirred up as he ran sent the nearby trees on both sides swaying and rustling wildly.

"Whoo~"

"In~"

As Li Hai raced along, he kept his breathing steady. His powerful heart sent waves of blood through every limb and organ, and inexhaustible strength surged ceaselessly through his body.

In fact, as his mastery of the Steel Tendons and Iron Bones realm deepened, Li Hai grew more and more certain that he was now immune to almost every kind of firearm.

Even the so-called anti-materiel sniper rifle might be unable to hurt him.

His body was simply too absurdly powerful and terrifying—so much so that he could withstand bombs and even artillery fire.

At the same time, Li Hai did not let the run distract him.

He glanced at his personal interface and, with a single thought, advanced the divine ability he had learned from Qiu Fangzheng to its limit.

In an instant, he gained two more traits: [Yin Absorption Level 1] and [Breath Concealment Level 1].

He also suddenly grasped the essence of the divine ability, Golden Ridge Yin Gathering.

"Golden ridge" referred to a mountain, and mountains stood forever silent and unshaken.

Thus, Golden Ridge Yin Gathering was a divine ability that could absorb the yin energy of deep mountains while also concealing one's presence and breath.

But strangely, the living could not endure yin energy. Too much of it would make them ill, or even bring them bad luck and an early death.

So Golden Ridge Yin Gathering was clearly a ghostly divine ability, born for the dead. It could only be activated by someone with this ability after they died and became a ghost.

That was precisely why a ghost like Qiu Fangzheng, who was long dead and whose body had rotted away—leaving no question of bloodline at all—could still possess a Bloodline Divine Ability.

This divine ability also made Li Hai see things clearly.

If there was one, there could be two; if there were two, there could be three.

Since divine abilities with two traits existed, then this world must surely also contain even more powerful divine abilities, martial arts, spells, and other arts with more traits.

All he had to do was search, discover, and gather them.

"We're here."

Li Hai stopped outside a towering archway. "This is Ox-Horn Town."