Broken Mountain Fist—Rupture

Duan Xuan hid behind a thick fence in the medicinal garden, coldly watching the Wolf Stronghold men on the mountaintop.

Third Brother Zhu Kui and two of his subordinates had died on the spot. Nine people remained on the battlefield; the situation was still far from optimistic.

"Hmph, every last one of these Wolf Stronghold bastards is sharp as a fox. They've even pulled out some of my traps. But..."

At Wolf Tian's signal, the five thugs joined up with Second Brother Jiumo. The eight men fixed their eyes with murderous glints and charged straight toward the medicinal garden.

The man leading them had also been a hunter and was skilled at making traps. He had helped the assault team pull out several traps in a row. Just as he grinned smugly—

Whoosh!

A sharpened arrow tore through the air.

It pierced straight through his brow.

Then Duan Xuan yanked hard on the rope at his side.

The straw men that should have been inside the medicinal garden rose from the ground near Jiumo and the others like zombies.

Caught off guard by the sight of human figures, the thugs jumped in fright. Jiumo's face darkened to the extreme. "Still trying to use this trick? Don't even think about fooling me again!"

Yet things went against his wishes. The instant those straw men stood up, the long arrows Duan Xuan had bound to them in advance flew from their bowstrings.

Pfft! Pfft!

The thugs to Old Yao's left and right were pierced through the forehead and chest in an instant, tumbling viciously down the mountain.

They were stunned. Huddling into a circle, they watched the straw men on either side.

Because they had no idea which straw man still held a hidden mechanism.

The wind howled sharply. Everything grew quieter and quieter, until a gust rose at just the right moment.

Two thugs had wet their pants, their teeth chattering violently.

"I'm not fighting anymore! I'm done fighting! Sir, please spare me! I'm begging you!"

After saying that, the two men with trembling legs scrambled and rolled toward the foot of the mountain.

In their panic, they forgot the path they had taken up. With two clacks—

The beast traps hidden elsewhere snapped shut viciously around their leg bones. Then, carried by momentum—

They rolled elsewhere, and the hanging nooses tightened around their necks.

With a savage tug, the two men were hauled up into the trees and died on the spot.

In the blink of an eye, only three of the eight remained.

Sweat beaded across Old Yao's forehead as he stiffly turned his neck toward his eldest brother.

"Big Brother..."

"Shut up!" Wolf Tian stared fixedly at the medicinal garden atop the mountain. He believed someone had been watching them from above the whole time, but that person remained hidden, impossible to find.

Suddenly, he thought of an excellent plan and turned to run.

Jiumo's eyes widened. "Big Brother!"

A thug whispered, "Second Brother, the boss ran. What do we do?"

"What else can we do? The man on the mountain has clearly been guarding against us. Retreat!"

The boss was a martial arts expert at the Ming Force realm. Since even he had retreated, Jiumo had no need to keep up the act.

"None of you move. Keep attacking the medicinal garden!" Wolf Tian's words rooted their feet to the ground.

"Second Brother, the boss has completely thrown me for a loop... Are we leaving or not?"

"Going up means death. Disobeying the boss means death when we go back! Damn it, let's do it!"

Jiumo knew Wolf Tian's ways well. He usually treated his subordinates kindly, but anyone who disobeyed his orders would meet a miserable end.

Wolf Tian's attention remained fixed on the mountaintop. Sure enough, after running around twenty meters, he noticed a figure move up there. "What a greedy bastard. You want to wipe out my entire stronghold in one sweep? Dream on!"

But as he ran, Wolf Tian heard—

"Wolf Tian, you bastard..." Jiumo howled. The thug beside him also cried out as if begging for mercy, but after only a few seconds, both fell silent.

One corpse after another slid down the slope.

Wolf Tian abruptly stopped, his heart jolting in alarm. Could it be that he saw through my bait... I clearly saw him chasing after me just now.

As Wolf Tian hesitated, a figure leaped through the air above his head.

Wolf Tian's pupils contracted as three cold flashes shot toward his eyes.

Duan Xuan drew his bow to its fullest and released his fingers.

Twang—

Three feathered arrows flew at once.

These three arrows differed from those that had killed the thugs, because he had deliberately switched to metal arrowheads, prepared specifically for Wolf Tian.

In this era, metal goods were exceptionally precious.

Moreover, commoners were forbidden from privately forging weapons such as metal arrowheads.

But to be safe, Duan Xuan could not worry about such things.

Even the bows he had set up along the fence earlier had used wooden arrows. Those were fine against ordinary people, but they were not enough against a Ming Force expert.

In the brief opening of just a few seconds, no matter how fast Wolf Tian was, he could not defend himself completely.

Faced with the three sudden arrows, he could only grit his teeth and twist his body aside.

The metal arrows only pierced through his right leg; he forcibly avoided the fatal areas.

"Who exactly are you?!" Wolf Tian dropped to all fours.

Under the hazy moonlight, his ghostly green eyes, the heat rolling off his body, his disheveled hair, and his torn clothes made him look exactly like a real wolf.

But when he looked back, Duan Xuan had not lingered. Seeing that the three-arrow volley had failed to kill him, he had promptly changed positions. Wolf Tian did not even catch sight of him and could only hurriedly turn toward the sound of the wind.

Duan Xuan's fist had already shot straight at him.

Smack!

Wolf Tian took a solid uppercut to the jaw.

Duan Xuan's tremendous force knocked Wolf Tian backward, but Wolf Tian seemed to have already activated the martial art he cultivated.

His beastliness surged. Not only did he feel no pain whatsoever, he instead bared his sharp teeth and burst into laughter.

"So you're just a brat who only recently stepped into Ming Force. Do you know who I am—"

Duan Xuan rooted his feet, stepped forward, and unleashed Mountain Opening.

With a pull and a tug, he seized Wolf Tian by the edge of his clothes and forcibly swung him back from behind.

Then he sank his waist and settled his stance, drew in his chest and raised his back. The Broken Mountain Stake Method was already in place, his blood and vitality rising continuously from the ground.

Borrowing the waist force generated by his twist, his left fist followed through. It was plain and unadorned, yet it whipped up the sound of flapping clothes.

Wolf Tian took a solid cannon punch to the chest. Before his body could right itself, Duan Xuan seized the chance.

He freed the right hand gripping Wolf Tian and struck out left and right in succession.

Invisible force rapidly stacked upon itself, intertwining with his surging blood and vitality and unleashing a chain of blows even fiercer than that cannon punch.

After the barrage of punches, Wolf Tian felt as if someone had seized his internal organs and shaken them violently. At last, he spat out a mouthful of blood.

Yet he kept laughing wildly, as though Duan Xuan's fists neither hurt nor itched, like a child merely roughhousing with him. Duan Xuan, meanwhile, did not lose his composure.

He continued to furrow his brow and draw breath, unleashing all three forms of Mountain Opening, the first move of the Broken Mountain Fist.

When Duan Xuan fiercely released the third form of the first move, the distance between them finally opened up.

Duan Xuan panted heavily, while Wolf Tian crashed hard to the ground, trailing a line of blood.

"Interesting. Too bad you aren't strong enough!" Wolf Tian's bones were numb and weak, but his wild laughter continued.

He pulled a shattered porcelain bottle from his chest and was about to pour its contents into his mouth.

Whoosh!

Clatter!

Though Duan Xuan was gasping for breath, the instant they separated, he rolled to his longbow and picked it up.

He did not believe the king of a mountain stronghold would have no backup plan. Sure enough, that brief second or two of hesitation made Wolf Tian think he had an opening.

The wooden arrow struck his hand. Though his sinews and bones were tough enough that it did not pierce through, the pain made him fling the porcelain bottle into a clump of grass.

"You brat!" Wolf Tian threw back his head and howled, a wolf's cry roaring from the depths of his lungs.

But when he looked up, he froze, because Duan Xuan had vanished again.

Tap tap tap!

Wolf Tian's left ear twitched as he heard footsteps. His body spun sharply, and he pounced forward.

But all that awaited him were a few stones and two hanging traps.

Something strange happened. The instant his hands landed in the traps, he sprang back up at a speed faster than Duan Xuan's reflexes could follow.

No—after thinking it over carefully, Duan Xuan realized that had not been a simple spring. It had been an eruption of wolfish instinct.

Could this be Wolf Tian's unique lightness skill? Duan Xuan suppressed the thought.

This time, Wolf Tian had finally found his position. He rose and charged straight at him, his two claws layering over one another.

Duan Xuan sank his waist and settled his stance, as steady as a boulder.

At the same time, he curled his fingertips slightly, and the ridge of his fist bulged like a drill.

Thud!

The first form of Mountain Rift, the second move of his Broken Mountain Fist—Drill Split—collided with Wolf Tian's claws.

After only an instant of exchange, Duan Xuan felt as though something vicious and poisonous had been injected into his bones. They went numb and sore, and his strength rapidly drained away.

Wolf Tian did not fare well either. The wolfish nature that allowed him to ignore pain had been forcibly awakened by that blow.

With old injuries already weighing on him and no chance to take the medicinal pill to treat his wounds, his entire body was reaching its limit.

He opened his wolfish eyes and swept them over Duan Xuan's concealed face.

He saw only two words in Duan Xuan's eyes.

Calm. Absolute calm.

"How is that possible? Could you be a disciple raised by some great aristocratic clan?

With emotions like these, you haven't fully suppressed them, so why are you still this calm?" Wolf Tian gritted his back teeth.

He knew very well that today, either Duan Xuan would die or he would perish, because Duan Xuan's eyes told him he would never be spared.

The next instant, he lowered his body to the ground once more. The veins in his arms bulged like great serpents.

His fingers dug into the earth, and with a kick of both legs, he shot forward like an arrow loosed from the string, opening his bloody maw as he attacked again.

He intended to use the explosive traits of his cultivation technique to bring Duan Xuan down.

"I've already figured it out. Your stake stance is solid, but that means you can't leave it. As long as I knock you down, you'll lose without a doubt."

Duan Xuan had already devised his countermeasure. At the hair's breadth when Wolf Tian closed in—

Duan Xuan turned both arms into Broken Mountain Wrist Hammers, striking left and right and drawing an almost perfect arc.

Crack crack crack!

After the exchange, Duan Xuan's steady Broken Mountain Stake Method carried him dozens of steps backward.

Wolf Tian's claws, however, seemed to be adhesive.

They locked tightly onto Duan Xuan's wrists. He neither bit nor clawed.

Yes, either of those methods had merely been an illusion he created.

His true goal had always been to break Duan Xuan's stake stance and knock him to the ground.

Finally, at one moment, Duan Xuan's feet lifted from the ground at the same time, his entire body tipping over.

The corner of Wolf Tian's mouth rose. Before he could gloat, however, his body was flung violently away along with Duan Xuan's sidestep.

"You no longer have time to set your fist frame. Use whatever tricks you still have!" Wolf Tian did not lose heart. He gathered force beneath his feet, preparing to kick off again.

But Duan Xuan unexpectedly changed his attack and shifted in front of him.

A fist shot straight toward his face.

Wolf Tian gave a mocking chuckle and raised a claw, intending to hook through Duan Xuan's wrist tendons.

At that moment, Duan Xuan's attacking fist abruptly stopped. His other fist seized the opening and shot straight for Wolf Tian's left ribs.

Bang!

A dull, heavy impact rang out, followed by the sound of bones breaking inch by inch.

Wolf Tian felt pain and wanted to use other sinister moves to create distance, but Duan Xuan's true killing move lay in the first fist. The fist suspended in midair struck like muffled thunder, driving straight into the heart of the matter!

Wolf Tian clutched his crotch, his face deathly pale as his breathing stopped.

"Hah!"

"Broken Mountain Fist, second move, fourth form—One Punch, Two Yolks!"