Rank-Two Demonic Beasts Were Nothing

"Alright." Li Zhengyang paid the fare, got out of the car with his spear on his back.

Li Zhengyang stood on the road and looked ahead.

The Northern Suburbs Wetland was officially called "the outer perimeter of the protected area," but in reality, it was an unmanaged no-man's land.

Low-level Demonic Beasts loved this kind of environment. There was water, grass, and cover. The government troops could not be bothered to venture deep in for extermination, so they outsourced it to the Martial Artists' Office.

Li Zhengyang took the Mountain-Piercing Spear off his back, planted it one-handed on the ground, and stepped into the reeds.

After walking about two hundred meters in, the reeds grew denser and denser.

His vision was compressed to a range of three to five meters. Li Zhengyang pricked up his ears and listened.

A Martial Master's five senses far surpassed those of a Martial Warrior.

Three minutes later, he heard it.

Breathing.

Low, heavy breathing.

Twenty meters to his front right, deep within the reeds.

Two of them.

Li Zhengyang did not stop. He continued forward, slowing down.

When he reached fifteen meters, he saw them.

There were two bulges amid the reeds.

Grayish-green, nearly the same color as the reed leaves. Without looking carefully, they were impossible to distinguish.

The surfaces of the bulges were covered in dense scales.

Iron-Spine Lizards.

The Office's files stated: Second Rank Demonic Beasts. The iron armor on their backs was extremely hard, and ordinary weapons had difficulty penetrating it. Their weaknesses were their bellies and throats. It was recommended that three or more Martial Masters work together.

Three or more Martial Masters recommended?

Sorry, I'm not an ordinary Martial Master.

Li Zhengyang looked at the spear in his hand, then at those two grayish-green lumps.

When he reached ten meters, the Iron-Spine Lizard on the right moved.

It moved suddenly, plunging headfirst toward the water. Mud splashed more than two meters high, and two pairs of eyes stared fixedly at Li Zhengyang.

Its mouth opened, a row of teeth hissing out steam.

It had to weigh five or six hundred pounds.

This thing had a nickname among the local Martial Warrior circles: Mud Tank.

The reason was simple. Tough, fast, and brutal.

Once it charged, it could not easily change direction. But if it so much as grazed someone, a Martial Warrior's body would not be able to take it.

Li Zhengyang did not retreat.

He took two steps forward, deliberately closing the distance.

The Iron-Spine Lizard took it as a provocation.

It charged.

It was faster than he had imagined. Its five- or six-hundred-pound body could actually sprint at nearly sixty miles per hour through the muck.

Li Zhengyang stood still until the Iron-Spine Lizard was three meters away.

Then he struck with his spear.

The shaft swept sideways, the metal pole smashing into the side of the Iron-Spine Lizard's head.

A muffled boom rang out.

The sideways force knocked the Iron-Spine Lizard off course, and the entire lizard slid past Li Zhengyang's left side.

Li Zhengyang stepped forward, gripped the spear with both hands, and aimed its tip downward.

This time, he thrust.

From above, straight at the Iron-Spine Lizard's head.

The spearhead entered through the top of its skull and came out beneath its jaw. Blood gushed from the wound, mixed with brain matter into a sticky mess.

The Iron-Spine Lizard's four legs twitched a few times.

It died.

Li Zhengyang pulled out his spear and shook the blood from its tip.

The other Iron-Spine Lizard saw it and turned to flee.

Flee?

Li Zhengyang caught up in three steps and stabbed it from behind.

The spear pierced through the soft flesh of its lower back, its tip emerging beneath its belly.

The Iron-Spine Lizard let out a shrill, ear-piercing scream.

He pulled out the spear and stabbed again, this time through its neck.

The scales on its neck were thinner than those on its back. The spear pierced through them in one strike, and blood sprayed out.

Two of them, in less than a minute.

Li Zhengyang lowered his head to look at himself, covered in mud and blood, and muttered.

"Disgusting."

He crouched and cut off the Iron-Spine Lizards' tail spikes. The Office accepted those as proof.

He cut off two.

He stuffed them into his backpack and continued deeper in.

With the experience from the first two, he killed another six over the next half hour.

Four more to go.

Li Zhengyang found a relatively dry patch of raised ground and sat down to rest for a while, taking two swigs of water.

There were an outrageous number of mosquitoes in the wetland. One slap on his arm after a bite left a palmful of blood.

But a Martial Master's blood was hotter than an ordinary person's. After biting him, the mosquitoes got drunk before anything else and dropped listlessly to the ground.

He remembered that the Office files had mentioned Iron-Spine Lizards were pack animals. Usually, there were ten to fifteen in one area, spread across three to five nesting sites.

He had already cleared out two sites. The rest should be farther in.

He got up and kept walking.

The deeper he went, the more water there was, and the worse the mud became.

After another ten-odd minutes, the reeds ahead suddenly thinned out, revealing an open mudflat.

There was a depression in the middle of the mudflat filled with foul water, and four Iron-Spine Lizards lay by the water's edge.

They were bigger than any he had encountered before.

The scales on the largest one's back had turned black. It was an old specimen.

Four of them. Perfect.

Li Zhengyang used no tactics.

He simply walked straight toward them.

All four lizards spotted him at once and snarled simultaneously.

The largest one stood up, its four legs braced in the mud, body lowered into a charging stance.

Li Zhengyang leveled his spear and poured Blood Qi into it.

The Astral Qi at the spear tip was a circle thicker than it had been in the alley.

A weapon was an extension of Blood Qi. The higher the rank, the more could be infused into it, and the stronger its armor-piercing effect became.

When the first old specimen charged, he did not choose to take it head-on. Instead, he sidestepped, swept the spear horizontally, and sliced open the lizard's flank.

A crack split its scales, and blood poured out.

Not fatal, but painful.

The old lizard flew into a rage, turned around, and charged again.

The second one charged with it, the two attacking from either side.

Li Zhengyang retreated two steps and drove his spear down into the one on the right's forehead.

It went through.

The lizard on the left swept its tail across, its tail spike cutting through the air with a howl.

Li Zhengyang did not have time to pull out his spear. He ducked, and the tail swept over his head, snapping the reeds behind him.

The lizard turned around, preparing for a second sweep.

Li Zhengyang slammed a fist into its nose.

A Rank-Two Martial Master's strength was over two thousand pounds.

The lizard's head was knocked sideways, its entire body sliding half a meter as all four legs lost traction.

Before it could steady itself, Li Zhengyang walked over, pulled out his spear, turned, and drove it into the old lizard's mouth.

The spear tip burst out through the back of its skull.

The third one was already running toward the water.

It did not get away.

He threw the spear. From twenty meters away, it stabbed into the lizard's back.

It pierced through the iron armor and nailed it into the mud.

Li Zhengyang walked over, stepped on the lizard's back, and pulled out the spear.

The fourth was even more cowardly, huddling at the edge of the mudflat and not daring to move.

One thrust killed it.

Twelve Iron-Spine Lizards in half an hour.

He cut off the last four tail spikes, adding them to the previous ones for a total of twelve. His backpack was stuffed full.

"Looks like I need a bigger backpack next time."

When he stood up, he was caked from head to toe like a mudman.

But he was in a good mood.

The sixty-thousand-yuan job was in the bag.

Li Zhengyang carried his backpack and headed back.

When he reached the edge of the reeds, he stopped.

Fifty meters ahead, on the dirt road.

Four people stood off to the side, all looking in his direction.