Stairwell War God (Part 2)

At last, when Rat Gang corpses had clogged the stairwell so thoroughly that some had to be moved before they could launch another charge at Chen Jue and Lin Shoucheng,

all the lackeys lost heart.

Even after the stairwell had been cleared again, fear had taken root in them. They shrank back, pacing about without daring to advance.

Chen Jue panted heavily, standing like a war god at the stairwell entrance with his blade in hand. Its edge had been chipped and curled from hacking, and he was plastered head to toe in blood.

"What are you standing around for?! Keep charging! No matter how strong these two dog guards are, they should be nearly spent by now!"

"Don't be afraid of them! If you're wounded or crippled, the gang will pay for your treatment!"

The martial artist in gray fitted clothes, who had been holding the rear all along, barked orders harshly, constantly urging the gang members forward.

By now, he had cursed Zhang Wei's ancestors for eighteen generations.

He had said it was only an inspector at the third level of true qi, bringing along a newcomer fresh from the nest.

Yet after this brutal fight, that young man fresh from the nest had proven even more troublesome than a martial artist at the fourth level of true qi!

However, the gray-clothed martial artist's urging did not raise morale. Instead, it made the lackeys at the front even more terrified.

That was because the young inspector blocking the way had shown no restraint whatsoever. Anyone struck by his blade was certain to die; sometimes, they even lost their heads and could not keep an intact corpse.

"Uncle Lin, my blade's gone dull. Let's switch."

Chen Jue held his saber out to Lin Shoucheng.

Lin Shoucheng's admiration for this younger man had already reached the point of utter prostration.

Such terrifying yet steady sustained output—even some martial artists at the fourth level of true qi could only watch his dust from afar.

"Little Chen, you're the fiercest young man I've ever seen in my life!"

He exchanged his own saber for Chen Jue's and praised him from the bottom of his heart.

At that sight, the lackeys below the stairs went numb all over, as if they could already foresee that bloodied saber curling its edge again on their flesh, blood, and bones.

The pressure abruptly surged.

"You useless trash! At this point, if we don't kill those two to silence them, are we supposed to let them go back and confirm that the Rat Gang murdered officials and rebelled?"

"This is a crime that will exterminate three clans! Think of your livelihoods, then think of your families!"

That gray-clothed martial artist was truly inhuman. He was at the third level of true qi and the strongest one there, yet he lacked the courage to go up himself. Instead, he used the gang members' livelihoods and families to threaten them.

"Damn it! Let's risk it all against these two dog guards! Hall Master Wang, if we die, please have the gang treat our wives and children well!"

Several assault vanguards, shoved forward by the gang members behind them, saw that things had come to this. They no longer cared about side effects. Pulling red vials from their clothes, they yanked out the stoppers and poured them into their mouths.

At the sight, every hair on Chen Jue's body stood on end, and his pupils abruptly contracted.

An immense sense of danger drove him. He kicked off the ground and leaped from the second floor, slashing straight down.

The last two dense strands of Five Elements true qi within him were squeezed dry by Chen Jue, transformed into a leaping slash and a sweeping strike that crashed into the crowd.

Those Rat Gang assault vanguards who had taken the medicine had not even had time to turn into supermen before Chen Jue cut them down like wheat beneath a sweeping gale.

It was exactly as the saying went: the strongest defense was offense!

"Come! Kill me!"

Chen Jue roared wildly as he swung his saber. Gushing blood forged a shocking suit of crimson armor over his tall body.

Chen Jue's near-mad roar and charge shattered the courage of the Rat Gang lackeys, who saw him as though they had seen the King of Hell.

Those who had already been scared out of their wits were jolted by his roar until their minds went blank. They threw down their weapons, turned, and fled.

And once there was one, there was a second. In the blink of an eye, the encircling force of more than a hundred men collapsed into a rout.

"Don't run! You are not allowed to run! Retreat, and you die!"

The gray-clothed elder and several trusted subordinates blocked the first-floor hall. After cutting down several men in succession, they finally stabilized the decline.

Chen Jue killed several more people in the stairwell, but all his strength had run dry. He could only barely steady himself by leaning on the railing, his entire body already an arrow at the end of its flight.

What a pity. I couldn't scatter them all in one wave...

Chen Jue sighed inwardly as he panted hard.

His blood and qi were merely abundant; he was not truly a war god. Now that his true qi and physical strength had both been exhausted, all the Rat Gang needed to do was send another three to five men up to die, and he and Uncle Lin would surely perish.

Lin Shoucheng was no better off than Chen Jue.

Past middle age, his blood and qi had already begun to decline. Abruptly draining all the true qi in his body made him feel as though ten thousand ants were crawling over him; even the cracks between his bones trembled and groaned.

Yet he still endured the pain and discomfort, coming to Chen Jue's side to guard one flank for him.

Lin Shoucheng had spent half his life scraping and scheming. To die shoulder to shoulder with such an outstanding young genius as Chen Jue at the end of it—even in the underworld, he would be able to hold his head high.

"Brothers! The two of them are already arrows at the end of their flight! Charge once more, and they'll definitely die!"

Though the Rat Gang lackeys had been forcibly driven back to the front line by the gray-clothed martial artist supervising them from behind, they remained deeply uneasy. Seeing Chen Jue panting heavily was like seeing a demon breathing; they could not tell at all that his unstable breath was a weakness.

Thus, no matter how the gray-clothed martial artist shouted and cursed, they only lingered fearfully without advancing. One man even suffered a mental breakdown, cried out amid the crowd, and slit his own throat on the spot.

Seeing this, Chen Jue sneered and called out, "As the strongest leader, you don't dare step forward to test us yourself, yet you send all your brothers here to die... You're not much of a boss."

"And those promises about helping look after their families were probably lies too, weren't they?"

Lies did not wound people; truth was the sharp blade.

Hearing Chen Jue's provocation, seeds of doubt immediately grew wildly in the Rat Gang lackeys' hearts. They became even less willing to risk their lives against him.

Yet after hearing Chen Jue's words, the gray-clothed martial artist was not angered. Instead, he finally let go of the breath he had been holding.

With five trusted men carrying bloodstained sabers, he stepped out from the crowd.

"..." Chen Jue narrowed his eyes.

His words had cowed the Rat Gang lackeys, but they could not cow the gray-clothed martial artist, who had remained present and watched coldly from the start. Instead, they had exposed his bluff and the weakness beneath it...

How could he break this deadlock?

Chen Jue's gaze swept around the entire space, trying to find a sliver of life within it.

But this was a killing trap set for him and Uncle Lin. How could it possibly be so easy to find a way out... Yet he really did find one.

Chen Jue dropped onto the ground with a thud, startling the gray-clothed martial artist and his group into instinctively taking two steps back.

"Haha! Out of strength—"

Before the gray-clothed martial artist could finish, Chen Jue reached toward a corpse beside him, pulled out a red vial, removed the stopper, and drank it in one gulp.

"Blood-Burning Potion!! Damn it!! Get him! Kill him!"

The gray-clothed martial artist panicked at the sight and charged at Chen Jue with his trusted men.

In his anxiety, Lin Shoucheng rushed forward first. Within three moves, his exhausted strength failed him, and the gray-clothed martial artist sent him flying with a slash that carved a long wound across his chest.

Using the brief opening Uncle Lin had bought him, Chen Jue forcibly circulated the medicine in his abdomen, spreading it through his limbs and every bone in his body.

Fire! Fire! Fire!

In an instant, Chen Jue felt the blood and qi throughout his body burst into flames.

A faint red glow spread across his entire body, and immense power flooded him as his blood and qi burned.

"I'll kill you!"

Chen Jue's eyes turned crimson. His entire body was scorching like boiling water. With a kick, he shot down from the stairwell like a phantom, saber light unfurling like a bolt of silk as it crashed down upon the gray-clothed martial artist standing at the front with his weapon raised.

"You—!"

The gray-clothed martial artist's soul nearly fled his body. He raised his saber to block, and with a CLANG, it was as though a massive cauldron weighing a thousand jun had crushed down upon him. His knees bent involuntarily, and he dropped straight to the ground.

Chen Jue's blade sank into the gray-clothed martial artist's shoulder. Terrified, the man frantically shouted to his trusted men, "Why aren't you killing him already?!"

His five trusted men snapped awake as if from a dream. Though fear filled their hearts, they still rushed at Chen Jue with their sabers.

Chen Jue swept his blade sideways along the gray-clothed martial artist's saber, instantly shaving off half his head.

The gray-clothed martial artist's trusted men were horrified. Before they could retreat, a blood-red figure had already closed in on them.

Saber light rose like a raging storm.

Not one of the five martial artists at the first level of true qi could withstand drugged-up Chen Jue for even a single exchange. All were brutally slain, their corpses left incomplete.

"Waaah!~~"

Below the stairs, the Rat Gang lackeys saw the demon god descend once more. Their gallbladders nearly burst from fright. Cursing their parents for not giving them two more legs, they scrambled and tumbled away in a disorderly flood.

Facing the sea of fleeing backs and rear heads, Chen Jue's eyes were red as blood. His blade moved faster than thought; though his heart had stopped, his hands did not. He swung mechanically, cutting down life after life in the corridor, the hall, and the restaurant entrance.

"Little Chen! Enough, enough! Don't chase them! The Rat Gang people have all run away!"

Seeing Chen Jue still trying to chase out of the restaurant with his saber, as if possessed,

Lin Shoucheng, though severely wounded and drained of strength, still erupted with his last reserves to catch up to Chen Jue and seize his hand tightly.

At that pull, the burning blood and qi in Chen Jue's body instantly scattered. His severely overloaded body could no longer hold on. He could only prop himself up with his saber and gulp down the bloody air of the restaurant like a fish stranded on shore.

Only then did the inspectors sent as reinforcements from Kaiyang Guard Station finally arrive, fashionably late.

But when they entered the restaurant and saw corpses strewn across the floor, along with the sabers in Chen Jue and Lin Shoucheng's hands hacked until their edges had curled, every one of them turned pale with fright, every hair standing on end.

Especially that young man standing at the restaurant entrance with his saber as a cane, his entire body glowing red and dyed like a blood-soaked rice dumpling.

He was simply like a savage ghost from a nightmare!

Was that still a human being?!