Bandits

"Wait." Tang San raised a hand, signaling for the others to stop.

Huang Fei and Xiao Wu stopped at the same time.

Huang Fei pulled both hands from his sleeves and narrowed his eyes slightly.

His senses were sharper than Tang San's, after all, his Soul Power was at level twenty. Even before Tang San spoke, he had sensed something hidden in the poplar grove ahead—not the aura of a Soul Beast, but people. More than one.

"Something wrong?" Xiao Wu asked in a low voice, already starting to roll her wrists.

Tang San didn't answer. His gaze swept over the woods ahead as the Purple Demon Eye quietly activated. He had only just touched the threshold of the Micro Realm, but at this distance, it was more than enough to observe human auras.

Three people. Hidden behind the trees. Their Soul Power fluctuations were faint, so they were probably Soul Masters who had only recently awakened. But their breathing was heavy, their heartbeats fast, and their body temperatures far higher than those of ordinary travelers. They weren't passing through. They were waiting for someone. They were waiting for them.

"Come out." Tang San's voice wasn't loud, but it carried far along the silent woodland path. "Aren't you tired of hiding behind the trees?"

Silence for three seconds.

Then three people stepped out from behind the poplars on either side of the road.

Three men. All wore dusty, coarse cloth clothes, with short knives tucked at their waists. Their faces were unremarkable—the sort you could lose in a crowd and never find again. The one in front had a scar across his face, running from his left eyebrow to the corner of his right mouth. It looked as if someone had slashed him with a knife and done a poor job stitching him up, leaving a crooked, centipede-like mark. The two behind him were one fat and one thin. The fat one had a round belly, while the thin one was as skinny as a bamboo pole. Side by side, they made quite a contrast.

The scar-faced man chuckled, showing a mouthful of yellow teeth.

"You three brats have money on you, right? Hand it over, and we won't lay a finger on you. Save yourselves some pain."

Tang San frowned. Bandits. He had read about them in books. The bandits along the main roads specialized in preying on lone merchants and travelers. But they usually operated in groups and picked rich targets. It was rare for bandits to stop three children who clearly didn't look like they had anything worth taking.

Unless they weren't after "money."

Tang San glanced at the shiny object at the scar-faced man's waist. It was a bronze Spirit Hall token, exactly like the one he carried. He looked at the waists of the other two. They had bronze tokens too.

Soul Masters. Soul Masters officially registered with Spirit Hall.

Three One-Ring Soul Masters, robbing children on the main road?

Tang San's frown deepened.

"Big brother, stop wasting time with them," the skinny man urged from behind, his voice shrill. "Just take the money and let's go."

The scar-faced man ignored him, keeping his eyes on Tang San as he spun the short knife between his fingers.

"Well? Have you made up your mind?"

Tang San didn't move. His gaze shifted from the scar-faced man to the fat one, then from the fat one to the thin one, rapidly assessing their strength.

All three had faint Soul Power fluctuations, probably around level eleven or twelve as One-Ring Soul Masters. Their physiques were ordinary, and judging by their stances, they were unaffiliated Soul Masters with no systematic combat training. He could handle two opponents of this level without trouble, and Xiao Wu should have no problem taking on one.

"Huang Fei," Tang San called softly, without turning around.

"Mm." Huang Fei answered from behind him, still sounding lazy, but he had already stepped up beside Tang San.

"One each," Tang San said.

"Sure." Huang Fei nodded, letting his gaze sweep across the three bandits' faces before settling on the skinny one on the far left. "I'll take that one."

"The one in the middle is mine," Xiao Wu said from the right. Her ponytail was already undone, her long hair falling over her shoulders. Her eyes shone with an almost unnatural brightness, and the corners of her mouth curled up, revealing two little tiger teeth.

She didn't look like someone about to be robbed. She looked more like a rabbit who had finally found the chance to get into a proper fight.

The scar-faced man stopped spinning his knife.

He sensed something change in the three children. They weren't afraid or panicked. They were... excited. Excited, as if they'd finally found something to do.

The feeling sent a chill down his back. But then he remembered that all three of them were One-Ring Soul Masters, while the oldest of the children opposite them didn't look more than eight. Even if they were geniuses, they couldn't possibly have reached the One-Ring level at this age, could they? He steadied himself and decided to stick to the plan.

"You won't take the easy way, so you can take the hard way!" the scar-faced man sneered. "Get them!"

Before the words had even left his mouth, all three released their Martial Souls at once.

A gray wolf's phantom appeared behind the scar-faced man, a layer of gray stone-like hide covered the skinny man's arms, and the fat man's hands turned into a pair of bear paws. A white Soul Ring rose beneath each of them.

One ring. White. Level eleven.

Their level was appallingly low.

When Tang San saw the three white Soul Rings, the last trace of tension in his heart vanished. A white Soul Ring was the lowest-ranked Ten-Year Soul Ring, meaning their First Soul Rings were all less than a hundred years old. With Soul Power at only level eleven or twelve and the lowest-grade Soul Rings, opponents like these didn't even require him to use his full strength.

A flash of purple-gold light passed through Tang San's eyes.

His Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul struck first. Blue Silver Grass erupted in front of him, and a thick vine shot from his palm, fast as lightning, wrapping precisely around the scar-faced man's ankle.

Entangle.

The vine tightened abruptly, dragging the scar-faced man down. His feet seemed nailed to the ground, leaving him unable to move. His Gray Wolf Martial Soul howled furiously, and his white Soul Ring flashed—but he hadn't even had time to release his Soul Skill, because Tang San's vine had already climbed around his neck.

"Don't move." Tang San's voice was calm, as if he were saying something ordinary. "Move again, and I'll tighten it."

The scar-faced man froze. His short knife was still raised in the air, but his wrist trembled. He could feel it: the vine around his neck was no joke. Its tenacity and living pressure convinced him that if he moved, even once, it would crush his windpipe without hesitation.

The battles on the other two sides were over almost as quickly.

Xiao Wu was fighting the fat man with the Bear Paw Martial Soul. She moved as fast as a gust of wind. The fat man's Bear Paw Martial Soul packed a lot of power, but he was slow and couldn't even touch the hem of Xiao Wu's clothes. Xiao Wu circled behind him and kicked the back of his knee. The fat man dropped to his knees with a thump. She planted another kick on his back and pressed him face-first into the yellow dirt, where he got a mouthful of mud.

"I give up, I give up, I give up!" The fat man lay on the ground, slapping the earth with both bear paws as he begged for mercy.