"You're courting death!"
After a brief moment of shock, Wang Hu's face was instantly replaced by boundless savagery.
He was, after all, a battle-hardened guard commander. His powerful Eighth Level of Body Tempering cultivation allowed him to snap out of his horror in an instant.
Not only did he not retreat, he let out a beast-like roar and stomped down hard. The solid wooden floor cracked apart with a bang. His sandbag-sized fist, wrapped in surging blood and qi, shot forth like a cannonball leaving the barrel, charging straight at Chen Chen's head without dodging or evading!
Besieging Wei to rescue Zhao! Fighting offense with offense!
He was confident that, with the strength of his Eighth Level of Body Tempering cultivation, he could blast this little bastard's head into a puddle of mush before the other's blade came down!
However, the one he faced was an avenger with the combat experience of two lifetimes, one who had calculated everything to the utmost extreme.
A trace of mockery flashed through Chen Chen's eyes.
Just as Wang Hu's fist wind was about to strike him, Chen Chen's figure suddenly turned illusory. Like a wisp of green smoke, he slid half a foot to the left.
Seven Shadows Step!
Wang Hu's inevitable punch grazed Chen Chen's afterimage and struck empty air with a boom, its violent force blasting a huge hole through the wall behind him!
Meanwhile, Chen Chen had already stuck close to his side like a disease clinging to the bone.
The steel blade in his hand traced a tricky, vicious arc. Its target was not Wang Hu's vital points, but the relatively vulnerable spot beneath his right ribs!
Wang Hu's expression changed drastically. He had never expected his opponent's movement technique to be so bizarre!
Caught off guard, he could only forcibly twist his waist and use his thickly muscled arm to receive the strike head-on.
"Pfft!"
The blade sank into flesh, and blood sprayed!
Chen Chen's slash left a wound so deep that bone could be seen on Wang Hu's arm.
Yet Wang Hu used the opportunity to open some distance between them, his eyes filled with horror and disbelief.
Ninth Level of Body Tempering!
This little bastard was actually at the Ninth Level of Body Tempering!
The intelligence was wrong! Catastrophically wrong!
"Men! There's an assa—"
Wang Hu opened his mouth to call for help.
But he had only shouted three words before his voice abruptly cut off.
Because Chen Chen's assault did not pause in the slightest. When the first strike missed, the second and third followed like a raging storm, unceasing and relentless!
Blade light wove a net of death within the small room.
Chop, slash, sweep, thrust!
Every strike was simple and direct, yet vicious to the extreme, all following the style of trading life for life.
Driven back step by step by this mad, demonic style of fighting, Wang Hu could only wave his arms desperately to block. He did not even have time to draw his saber.
The longer he fought, the more alarmed he became.
Not only was the other's cultivation higher than his, but his combat experience and grasp of timing were so seasoned that he seemed nothing like a youth!
"Clang! Clang! Clang!"
The collisions of arm and blade rang out in dense bursts of metal-on-metal clamor.
Wang Hu's arms had long since become a bloody mess of mangled flesh, blood staining half his body red.
"You little beast, I'll fight you to the death!"
Wang Hu knew that if this continued, he would sooner or later be worn to death. A look of resolve flashed through his eyes. Ignoring Chen Chen's slash toward his chest, he condensed all the blood and qi in his right fist, abandoned all defense, and savagely threw a punch!
Mutual destruction!
However, this very moment of madness was what Chen Chen had been waiting for.
The instant Wang Hu punched, Chen Chen's blade, which had been chopping toward his chest, suddenly dipped downward at an unimaginable angle.
The blade turned and viciously sliced toward Wang Hu's punching wrist!
Wang Hu's pupils suddenly contracted!
He wanted to retract his fist, but it was already too late.
"Crack!"
A bone-splitting sound that made teeth ache rang out.
Wang Hu's entire right fist, along with his wrist, was severed cleanly at the root!
"Aah—!"
A shrill scream finally burst from his throat.
But in the next second, an icy blade had already mercilessly swept across his neck.
[ Ding! Killed an Eighth Level of Body Tempering martial artist. Cultivation Points +80! ]
Wang Hu's enormous head flew into the air, his face still bearing extreme agony and unwillingness.
Expressionless, Chen Chen kicked aside the headless corpse.
He walked to the wall, dipped his fingers in the warm blood, and wrote another dripping scarlet character beside the "Chen" Wang Fugui had left behind.
"—Chen!"
After finishing all this, he did not linger for even a moment. He turned and leaped out the window, clinging to the wall like a gecko as he silently slid down and once more merged into the pitch-black underground sewer.
From the moment he infiltrated the place, to killing Wang Hu, to retreating safely.
The entire process took no more than a quarter of an hour.
When the other guards and Blood Guards of the martial hall sensed that something was wrong and smashed open the door, all they saw were two corpses and those two blood-red characters on the wall—so glaring they seemed to be mocking them.
"Commander!!!"
A roar of utter horror once again shook Qingyang City's night sky.
Wang Family Mansion, council hall.
"Bang!"
Another table made from Century-Old Ironwood was smashed into splinters filling the air by Wang Wei's palm.
"Trash! Every last one of you is trash!"
His eyes were bloodshot, and like a beast ready to devour people, he glared fiercely at the trembling guards and Blood Guards kneeling on the ground.
"Nearly a hundred guards! Ten Blood Guards! A commander at the Eighth Level of Body Tempering! Yet you let a snot-nosed brat come and go freely right under your noses, kill someone, and retreat at his leisure!"
"Does my Wang Family feed you just to make you useless rice buckets?!"
His roaring made the entire hall hum and tremble.
Everyone in the hall lowered their heads, not daring even to breathe loudly.
Fear, like dark clouds, hung over everyone's hearts.
That remnant of the Chen Family was too terrifying!
He was like a ghost walking through the dark night. You could never know when he would appear, or in what manner he would take your life.
The first time, it had been the Foreign Affairs Manager.
The second time, the chief guard commander.
Then what about the third time?
Who would it be?
Would it be oneself?
This unknown terror was even more tormenting than directly facing an army of thousands.
"Family Head, that... that little thief's cultivation has likely reached the Ninth Level of Body Tempering..." a Blood Guard captain said in a trembling voice.
"The Ninth Level of Body Tempering?" A trace of undisguisable fear flashed through Wang Wei's eyes, only to turn into deeper resentment a moment later.
"So what? My Wang Family is not some soft persimmon for others to squeeze as they please!"
He suddenly turned toward the two Family Heads seated among the guests, whose expressions were equally dark.
"Brother Li! Brother Zhao! You've both seen it! That little beast has gone mad! Today he can kill people from my Wang Family; tomorrow he can kill people from your two families! We are grasshoppers tied to the same rope now. If we do not work together and drag him out to tear him into ten thousand pieces, all of Qingyang City will never know another peaceful day!"
Patriarch Li and Patriarch Zhao exchanged a glance. Both saw solemnity in the other's eyes... along with a trace of hesitation.
They had thought this was merely a private grudge between the Wang Family and the Chen Family.
Now, it seemed that this Chen Chen had become an uncontrollable madman, an enormous hidden danger threatening all of them.
Patriarch Li pondered for a moment before saying, "Brother Wang, this boy comes and goes like a ghost. Searching the entire city would be like fishing a needle from the sea. In my view, it is better to guide than to block. The three of our families should join forces and spread word that a Crimson Blood Ginseng about to mature has been discovered at Sky Eagle Cliff outside the city. Such a Spirit Medicine would be enough to drive countless Rogue Cultivators mad. That Chen Chen brat will surely be tempted if he wants to increase his strength!"
"As long as he dares leave the city, Sky Eagle Cliff's terrain is wide and open, leaving nowhere for him to hide. When the time comes, the experts of our three families will all emerge, and we will lay down a net that covers heaven and earth. We will make sure he comes but never returns!"
This was an open scheme.
A poisonous plot using a precious treasure to lure the snake from its hole.
A sharp glint flashed in Wang Wei's eyes as he slapped his thigh. "Good! A fine plan! We'll do exactly that!"
He seemed already to see Chen Chen being hacked into pieces by countless blades, and a cruel smile appeared on his face.
Yet none of them knew.
On the roof of a private residence not far from the Wang Family Mansion, a figure lay quietly concealed.
Chen Chen.
The powerful divine soul of the Nine Nether Soul Refining Art allowed him to clearly "eavesdrop" on every conversation within the council hall from several hundred meters away.
"Sky Eagle Cliff? Crimson Blood Ginseng?"
A cold sneer curled at Chen Chen's lips.
Trying to lure me out of the city?
Unfortunately, you have miscalculated.
He did not leave, but continued lurking there.
He was waiting for the people of the Li Family and Zhao Family to emerge from the Wang Family.
Half an hour later.
Patriarch Li and Patriarch Zhao left the Wang Family Mansion in a hurry with their respective guards.
Like a falling leaf, Chen Chen's figure silently followed after them.
But he was not following the two more powerful Family Heads.
Instead... he followed the two Li Family guards at the very rear of the group, responsible for covering the rear.
After passing through several pitch-black alleys.
Chen Chen moved.
His figure appeared behind those two guards as though he had teleported.
Before they could react in any way, two hand chops accurately struck the backs of their necks.
The two guards at the Body Tempering Third Layer did not even have time to groan before they collapsed limply to the ground.
Chen Chen dragged the two of them deeper into the darkness.
A moment later.
He emerged from the darkness wearing a Li Family guard uniform. His face had also been disguised into an unfamiliar one with specially prepared medicine.
He hung one guard's waist token at his own belt.
Then he walked to the other guard's corpse and used that guard's blade to leave a wound bearing the distinctive mark of the Wang Family's Blood Fiend Saber Technique on the body.
After finishing everything, he threw the corpse onto the only route leading to the Zhao Family Mansion.
"Wang Family, Li Family, Zhao Family..."
"This water isn't muddy enough yet."
"I'll help you add another fire to it."
Chen Chen's figure merged into the darkness once more, heading straight toward... the Zhao Family Mansion!
Before you continue