Scarface weighed the dripping short blade in his hand, sizing Li Pingsheng up from head to toe.
There wasn't a trace of fear in his eyes. He looked like a butcher eyeing pork on a chopping block.
A lowlife thug from the Outer City had dared to call out his status as a true disciple in one breath, and still hadn't given an inch.
A man like that was either a fool or had someone backing him.
Clearly, these people weren't the former.
Li Pingsheng couldn't be bothered with nonsense. The blood and qi beneath his skin suddenly began to churn.
[Synesthesia] activated.
The fishy stench of rainwater in the air was filtered away, and a faint, sickly-sweet scent drifted from the short blade.
He knew that scent.
It was a scent found only deep within Black Mist Forest.
Corroding Bone Vine toxin.
This poison was made specifically to counter body-refining martial artists. So long as it broke the skin, one's blood and qi would immediately collapse, and even the bones would be corroded into rotten sludge.
These people weren't here to rob anyone. They had come for martial artists from the academy.
Seeing Li Pingsheng stand still, Scarface assumed he was scared.
He lifted his chin, and the two thugs at his sides immediately spread out through the muddy water.
The three of them crossed steps beneath their feet, moving to the same rhythm. After no more than two exchanges of position, they had completely sealed off the ten-foot-wide dead-end alley.
The man on the left blocked any charge forward, the man on the right sealed off dodges and turns, while Scarface himself stood on the center line, waiting to strike hard the moment Li Pingsheng lost his balance.
No matter which way he crashed through, he would meet