Night of Annihilation, the Pond's Fish Suffered

The starry night gleamed like silver, its ribbons trailing ten thousand miles.

At the edge of an oasis in a vast desert, four figures sped away in rapid succession.

"Brat! Hand over the martial art in your arms, and this old man will spare your life!"

The shout echoed for a hundred meters. The leading figure's ears buzzed violently, and the blood and qi throughout his body instantly stalled!

Not good!

With a silent sigh, the figure's circulating inner strength suddenly froze. The old force beneath his feet had faded, while new force had yet to arise.

Pfft!

He abruptly fell, then rolled over to face the three men chasing after him.

"Haha!"

"Brat, you run pretty fast. Go on, run again if you can!!"

Three gaunt old men in green robes stood before him, staring at him with icy expressions.

Under the moonlight, the figure was revealed to be a handsome, clear-featured youth. He wore a short blue martial outfit, and the lines of his bare skin stood sharply defined—one could tell from afar that he was a martial practitioner as well!

"Huff~~ Damn it all, I saved up ten taels of silver to learn martial arts. I hadn't even studied for many days before the martial hall where I'd taken a master was wiped out!"

"Who the hell am I supposed to complain to about that!!"

The youth was named Wang Xuance. Having lived two lives, his circumstances after arriving in this world could only be called miserable!

His mother had died of illness years ago. Not long after, his father had been snatched away by a ferocious beast while out working, and had most likely met his end in its jaws as well.

And so began his lonely, drifting life.

Fortunately, his parents had left him three taels of silver. Carrying this "enormous fortune," he set out to roam the world.

In this world, martial strength reigned supreme. There was no fancy nonsense—everything came down to whose fist was harder!

Only those with harder fists could survive.

Only by becoming a martial practitioner—a martial artist—could one establish a foothold in life.

To become a martial artist, one had to enter the path of martial arts and open one's martial apertures.

Thus, he had struggled and scraped through the jianghu's lower rungs for years, saving up ten taels of silver to take a master and learn martial arts.

Who could have known...

Before he had studied for long, Tower Stele Martial Hall, where he had taken a master, suffered the calamity of extermination. And he, like fish caught in the spillover, had been dragged into it and hunted all the way here!

Fortunately...

His slender, dark arm brushed over his chest, where a martial art called [Eightfold Heavenly Gang] was hidden within his inner lining.

This martial art was precisely the chief reason Tower Stele Martial Hall had been exterminated.

Its origins were astonishing: it was a remnant, Profound-rank cultivation manual from Infinite Brahma Saint Sect, a major sect of the Western Desert a century ago.

At a thought, a translucent panel burst into his mind!

[Name: Wang Xuance]

[Age: Fourteen]

[Martial Foundation: Inferior Bones!]

[True Martial Qi: 0]

[Martial Arts: Tortoise-Snake Great Stance (Beginner 20/1000)]

[Vajra Fist (Beginner 70/2000]

[Eightfold Heavenly Gang Fusion Rate: 30%. Estimated time to reach 100% fusion: half an incense stick!]

[Martial Talent: True Martial Qi can be gained through matched combat and fighting enemies. True Martial Qi can be used to stack martial art progress!]

That was right—this was the cheat he had brought with him after transmigrating into this martial-arts-supreme world!

He licked his cracked lips, steadied his breathing, and assumed a boxing stance.

"Hehe, a brat who hasn't even condensed true qi, yet his stance looks quite convincing!"

Whoosh!

In an instant, the sleeves of the three old men swelled wildly, billowing without cease. Abundant blood and qi surged in layer after layer, while booming sounds like war drums thundered from within their bodies!

They formed a triangular encirclement around him, their dense true qi sealing off this small area.

"Three Fetal Breath Realm cultivators!"

Wang Xuance's pupils contracted, and his heart immediately sank to the bottom.

They were an entire major realm above him. Whether he could even withstand a single move from them was unknown!

[True Martial Qi +3!]

[True Martial Qi +3!]

"Attack!"

Wang Xuance saw a blur before his eyes, and three fierce blasts of force slammed into him like charging bulls.

"Ah!"

His frail body instantly curled up like a cooked shrimp, and with a "pff," he spat out a mouthful of blood mixed with fragments of internal organs!

Bang!

His body rolled several meters away like a rag sack. His breastbone and arm bones had both been shattered by the force, and his entire body felt as though it were about to fall apart. Wang Xuance lay staring up at the sky.

[True Martial Qi +60!]

[True Martial Qi +45!]

[Eightfold Heavenly Gang Fusion Rate: 98%]

"Eh, the kid's physique isn't bad. He took three punches and still didn't die on the spot!"

One step, then another, they advanced toward the youth.

The three men looked down on the youth from above, their expressions mocking.

A sleeve swept out, about to knock his head clean off, when a thunderous shout came from afar. The entire sky seemed as though the Thunder God had descended, suddenly crackling with lightning and blazing thunder.

"Impudent!"

"Azure Dragon Probes the Sea!"

A peerlessly savage force erupted in the form of a fist aura, within which the phantom of a dragon's head faintly emerged.

In an instant, the three old men's faces twisted in terror. Their bodies trembled all over, and beneath the shroud of that fist aura, they could not move an inch!

Yet Wang Xuance, who lay collapsed on the ground, felt that the rhythm of the voice was exactly like the Eightfold Heavenly Gang. A warm current flowed through the Tanzhong acupoint within him.

Boom!

[Eightfold Heavenly Gang Fusion Complete: 100%!]

Surging vitality arose from nowhere within his body, scouring away its impurities. Gray-black filth was expelled from his body at a speed visible to the naked eye!

Veins bulged one after another, like hundreds of earthworms writhing and spreading without end.

"Buzzzzzz~~"

Wang Xuance could not help but let out a fierce roar.

Bang bang bang—

Before they could react, the three people standing before him exploded with a bang, becoming countless sprays of blood mist and minced flesh.

Then another sinister voice burst from the sky.

"Kongxing, you still have the leisure to be distracted while trading moves with me? Die!!"

Bang!

Another teeth-grating impact exploded through the air.

At some point, a hunched monk in yellow robes had appeared before Wang Xuance. His right sleeve hung empty, blood dripping from it with a "drip, drip."

What astonished him was that when the blood fell to the ground, it gave off a faint metallic sheen beneath the moonlight!

As though sensing Wang Xuance's gaze, the monk in yellow turned around and gave him a slight smile.

The old face immediately brought peace to Wang Xuance's heart, and the restless vitality within him gradually settled as well!

Then the monk turned his gloomy gaze toward the figure that had landed not far away.

It was a burly man nearly eight feet tall, carrying a nine-ring broadsword on his back. As it swayed in the wind, it gave off a clanging "clang-clang" noise.

Every step he took on the ground erupted with a piercing roar!

Even from several zhang away, Wang Xuance could not help feeling his chest constrict and his mind grow unsettled.

Fortunately, the old monk shifted his right foot forward. It was as if an invisible giant hand covered the ground beneath his feet.

The immense pressure immediately weakened!

"Kongxing! Is your Great Vajra Mountain determined to stick its hand into this? You want to protect that brat behind you? With your current strength, you can't protect him!"

The burly man bared his ghastly white teeth and looked at the old monk with a face full of ridicule.

Kongxing merely shook his head slightly. Then, with a sweep of his left arm, he tossed Wang Xuance over a hundred meters away.

A rich, mellow voice reached the latter's ears.

"Little fellow, take this token of mine to Great Vajra Mountain. Consider it a small contribution I can make for the Buddhist sect!"

Immediately afterward, Wang Xuance heard the burly man's savage, furious roar. It shook his ears until they buzzed, and his head went dizzy before he knew nothing more.

His entire body felt as though it had been smashed to pieces by a heavy hammer as he crashed into the sand!

[True Martial Qi +180!]

Several hours passed. The burly man's face was so gloomy it seemed ready to drip water, his broad palm gripping Kongxing's corpse.

Three golden palm prints had sunk deep into the bones of his chest; every breath he drew brought a faint, stabbing pain!

"Hmph! That Great Vajra Sect's Guardian Elder truly possessed formidable horizontal training arts. If his vital energy and blood had not been weakened, then I would have been the one to fall today!"

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Five pitch-black figures appeared in succession and said in unison:

"Third Boss! Of the Tower Stele Martial Hall's three hundred and seventy-five people, all but one have been killed!"

As they spoke, each took a sallow yellow jade box from his robes.

With a sweep of his large hand, the burly man collected all five jade boxes into his robes.

He cast a sidelong glance at the desert before him, its ground carpeted in yellow sand. Narrowing his eyes, he sighed inwardly, What a pity. Letting someone who was no more than an ant to him escape with his life truly left him displeased!

"Move! Return to the stronghold at once!"