Reason

Zhao Feng snorted. His sinews and bones cracked like an explosion as he stepped forward, his iron fist hammering out. Fist met claw—Bang! A dull sound like tearing leather exploded through the narrow alley! Feng Second Tiger retreated half a step. His broad palm trembled slightly.

"Hidden Force?" His face changed drastically.

According to the strategist Lü Tong, this Zhao Feng was nothing more than a country bumpkin who had only entered Manifest Force a few months ago.

Zhao Feng pressed his advantage, advancing another half step. The point of his left elbow smashed down like an iron anvil toward the other man's chest, while his right palm swept backhanded at his neck, carrying the force of a fierce gale.

Where the wind of his force reached, the air itself seemed to ripple!

Feng Second Tiger was inwardly horrified. He had only intended to capture the man and interrogate him, never expecting him to possess Hidden Force and immediately strike to kill. Ruthless and sparing of words, Zhao Feng's killing moves had already arrived in an instant. Forced to respond hastily, Feng Second Tiger bent half his body backward into an Iron Bridge in that flash of lightning, evading Zhao Feng's backhand sweep. At the same time, he kicked upward with the tip of his foot, striking Zhao Feng's left elbow point and neutralizing that Heart-Top Elbow.

Yet in that same instant, Zhao Feng's missed right palm had already turned into a fist, crashing down viciously in a Mountain-Splitting Strike. He changed moves midway before the previous one had even run its course! Feng Second Tiger, still in the Iron Bridge stance, was terrified. Changing moves midway was not difficult; the difficult part was changing while maintaining Hidden Force, with the force itself transforming as well. In his haste, he changed both claws into palms, forming a bridge to forcibly receive the punch.

Bang! With a dull boom, the other man's Hidden Force penetrated his body. Feng Second Tiger was hammered straight into the ground, his back slamming heavily onto the earth and kicking up a cloud of dust. Both his arms throbbed with pain, and his blood and qi churned violently. He was horrified. One wrong step, and every step thereafter went wrong.

In that instant, his legs twisted and coiled. His entire body spun like a drill through a full three hundred and sixty degrees, and he actually sprang backward out of Zhao Feng's attack range, immediately regaining his feet.

"Hm?" Zhao Feng narrowed his eyes. This leg technique seemed familiar, bearing a resemblance to the technique Feng Dahu had used when fighting desperately for his life.

The thought flashed through his mind, and he immediately closed in. Power erupted from his heels, his movements swift as thunder! He chopped and struck in succession—Bracing Hammer! Scout Horse Splits the Mountain! Coiling Dragon Hand! Pigua Chain Strikes! He focused on the force of entanglement. He knew his footwork was inferior to Feng Second Tiger's, so he had to bring out the entangling force of Eight Extremes Fist and prevent Feng Second Tiger from widening the distance.

Feng Second Tiger groaned inwardly.

At first, he had not known that Zhao Feng possessed Hidden Force. His carelessness had caused him to lose the initiative from the very first move, and now Zhao Feng refused to relent, every strike a killing blow!

"Brother Zhao, there's a misunderstanding here. Please stop! We can talk this out!" Feng Second Tiger could only defend and could not help shouting.

If Zhao Feng possessed Hidden Force, then he was probably not the one who had killed his elder brother. There was no need to hack him to death in a vain attempt to cover things up—and even if he did, he would not be able to avenge his brother now!

But with Zhao Feng pressing him step by step, he gritted his teeth. Inner force surged wildly through both arms as his claws swept out in rapid succession.

"Shattering Dragon Claw!"

"Wind-Rending Hand!"

"Mountain-Taming Eagle Strike!"

Bang! Bang! Bang! Several consecutive collisions of inner force, hard against hard. Already caught off guard and at a disadvantage, Feng Second Tiger was blasted back again and again.

Zhao Feng seized the opportunity. His body sank as he closed in, his hips driving sharply forward, his knee smashing toward the other man's hip bone like a battering ram. In that split second, Feng Second Tiger twisted his hips and whipped up his left leg in a horizontal sweep to block it.

Crack! Ah! Feng Second Tiger let out a miserable scream. When his leg collided with Zhao Feng's rising knee, the sound of bone fracturing came from his shin.

After enduring that chain of ferocious attacks, his Hidden Force had failed to keep up, and he suffered heavily in the head-on collision.

But borrowing the momentum of that strike, Feng Second Tiger flew backward about three meters. Then, dragging his injured leg, he slid sideways with his right leg and swung it rapidly, darting several more meters away. He rushed out of the alley and vanished.

Zhao Feng stopped. He knew his footwork was lacking; even with one injured leg, Feng Second Tiger was beyond his reach.

This man seems to have only recently entered Hidden Force as well. All his hard training and inner force are concentrated in those eagle claws. He should come from the Eagle Claw Skill lineage. His Hidden Force in the lower body is clearly insufficient, and he has only practiced his leg techniques for a short time. His attainment is far inferior to Feng Dahu's, Zhao Feng thought.

He was different. Zhao Feng's stake work was absurdly solid, more solid than that of any disciple in the martial arts school. Moreover, the Eight Extremes Stake Skill emphasized Cross-Shaped Sinking Force, making the flesh, bones, and sinews of his lower body tougher and more smoothly connected. Though he had only just entered Hidden Force, his power flowed freely, so that knee strike had directly fractured Feng Second Tiger's shin.

Fortunately, his master had taught him precisely how to exert force tonight. Hadn't the perfect sparring partner just come to him—an opponent who had also only recently entered Hidden Force?

Yet Zhao Feng could not laugh inwardly.

"Why did this Feng Second Tiger come after me? Why?" Carrying that question, Zhao Feng returned to the courtyard at Willow Tree Alley.

"I thought I had done everything flawlessly. He should be seeking revenge against the Three Harmonies Gang. Why did he come after me?" Zhao Feng murmured as he sat down in the courtyard.

He went over the entire process of killing Feng Dahu again, as well as how carefully he had later checked for anyone following him. There had been no mistakes. It was impossible for anyone to have seen him or recognized him as the culprit.

He thought of Huang Biao, Leopard Bro, and the way he had still been targeted afterward. Gradually, he began to laugh, silently at first, then louder and louder, until he burst into hearty laughter.

"I was too hung up on appearances. In this world, there is no need to speak of evidence. Suspicion alone is enough."

How could a chaotic age of martial arts be like a society ruled by law, painstakingly tracing clues to find evidence? As long as someone discovered even the slightest connection or suspicion involving you, they might act against you. This was a brutal age where the strong devoured the weak. If you were weak, there was simply no reasoning to be had! The root of it all was that you were not strong enough.

Therefore, improving his own strength was the only hard truth. Only when he was strong enough would others not dare act rashly even if they suspected him. Of course, having a powerful backer would work too, but as the saying went, mountains could fall and people could run. Nothing was better than becoming strong yourself.

Still, even so, he would have to be as watertight as possible when doing such things in the future, removing himself from any connection to them. At the very least, it could buy enough time. For example, this time, if he had not acted carefully and left no traces, Feng Second Tiger would not have spent so long investigating. Had he acted earlier, Zhao Feng would have suffered greatly.

"If I hadn't broken through tonight, the situation just now would have been completely different."

Tonight, Zhao Feng had successfully broken through with his stake work. His Eight Extremes Fist had reached the level of great mastery, and he had also received Huo Shan's wholehearted guidance. Fortunately, he possessed all those prerequisites, allowing him to avoid being captured or humiliated. Instead, he had injured Feng Second Tiger and forced him to flee in defeat.

Of course, Feng Second Tiger himself had only recently entered Hidden Force, and he had lost the initiative after being careless at the start.

What Zhao Feng did not know was that before coming to find him, Feng Second Tiger had already visited several others who might have held grudges against Feng Dahu, not sparing a single one. It was true that he wanted to avenge his elder brother, but more than that, he wanted to recover the property his brother had taken with him. That was several hundred taels of silver. He also knew perfectly well that many of them could not possibly be the killer, but he had merely used the excuse to extort some money.

"After this man escaped, he became a potential threat." Zhao Feng did not fear him, but he had family. A desperate fugitive who was also a Hidden Force expert had to be eliminated completely to remove the danger.

Now that Zhao Feng had broken through into Hidden Force, he possessed a certain degree of strength. Naturally, he would no longer passively wait for the other man to come to him.

He would take the initiative instead.

Since even his utmost caution and every effort to conceal the traces had still resulted in him being suspected and nearly wrongly killed, he might as well strike first.

But where could he find him?

Zhao Feng thought for a long time, and an idea gradually formed in his mind.