What if I don't hand it over?

Shen Ye stepped down from the RV, took two steps toward Yang Feng, and stopped five meters away.

Heat shimmered above the asphalt, warping the outline of the distant mountain ridge into a blur.

Their eyes met.

Shen Ye first looked Yang Feng over. A floral shirt, white trousers, a beige cowboy hat, and beneath its brim, a pair of hawklike eyes sizing him up without the slightest attempt to hide it.

Then he glanced at the twenty-odd burly men behind Yang Feng.

Unlike the men surrounding the convoy, every one of them held an iron bar or machete. Their postures were loose, but their eyes were vicious, making them look just like gangsters from old movies.

There wasn't a trace of fear on Shen Ye's face.

He even smiled.

"I don't know you. And we have nothing to talk about."

Yang Feng smiled too.

He took off his sunglasses and tucked them into his shirt pocket, revealing his bloodshot eyes.

"It doesn't matter if you don't know me." His tone was light, as though he were discussing something utterly trivial. "As long as you know Zhao Biao."

Shen Ye said nothing.

Yang Feng continued, his voice unhurried. "Zhao Biao was my brother."

"He was in the wrong when he robbed you before. But you killed him and took his vehicle. That's going a little too far."

He paused and reached up to straighten his cuff.

"If I don't get some justice today, all these brothers of mine won't stand for it."

The burly men behind him obligingly pressed forward a step, tapping their iron bars against their palms with a chorus of dull thuds.

"Zhao Biao was your brother?" As if he'd heard a joke, Shen Ye's lips curled upward again, and he gave a quiet chuckle.

He was no fool. From what He Yunping had told him, those two had only ever met once.

They were nodding acquaintances at most.

He didn't dispute it, merely raising an eyebrow to see what bullshit the man would come up with.

"What kind of justice do you want?"

Yang Feng lowered his head slightly.

His gaze moved down from Shen Ye's face and settled on his right hand.

That hand was half closed, as though gripping something, but his palm appeared empty.

"What you're holding should be an Eldritch Weapon, right?"

Shen Ye's pupils abruptly contracted.

He was indeed holding Ghost Head. He had already activated Intangible, leaving the blade looking like nothing more than transparent air to anyone watching.

But Yang Feng had noticed.

Or rather...

His surprise lasted only a moment.

Shen Ye immediately realized that the man hadn't chased him all this way to seek justice for Zhao Biao.

From beginning to end, Yang Feng had only one target: his Ghost Head.

He stopped hiding it.

Ghost Head became visible.

The pitch-black blade emerged from the air inch by inch, the closed-eyed ghost head on its guard gleaming dully in the sunlight.

The entire weapon was several centimeters longer than an ordinary straight saber, with a faint layer of dark red covering its surface.

Even from five meters away, Yang Feng could feel the icy aura radiating from the blade.

Yang Feng's eyes lit up.

That gleam was undisguised greed, his gaze like that of a starving wolf already driven into a corner.

But he quickly suppressed that greed, and his expression relaxed again.

"Young man, you're quite something."

He took half a step forward, his tone suddenly turning warm.

"I can see you've got talent."

"Here's my offer. Hand that blade over without a fuss, and I can invite you to join the Blood Eagle Convoy."

"Then we'll be brothers, and we can forget all about Zhao Biao. That RV you took will still be yours, too."

"What do you say?"

He said it with a kindly smile, like a benevolent elder helping a younger man get ahead.

Shen Ye smiled too.

That kind of talk would only fool children.

But Shen Ye had seen far too many men like Yang Feng.

Back when he was a mercenary in his previous life, he'd taken plenty of jobs like this.

Those bosses who straddled both sides of the law and never stopped talking about "brotherhood" could turn on someone faster than they could turn a page.

Once he handed over the blade, nothing awaited him but death.

Yet Yang Feng could clearly have taken it by force. All this talk was merely his way of giving himself a pretext.

It was a habit he'd developed before the apocalypse.

Even though order had long since collapsed, he couldn't shake that habit overnight.

That was also the difference between a genuine boss and an "upstart" like Zhao Biao.

Shen Ye shook his head, a layer of mockery creeping into his smile.

"What if I don't hand it over?"

"You won't?"

Yang Feng froze for a moment, then threw his head back and laughed twice, as though he'd heard the funniest joke in the world, even as a flicker of anger entered his eyes.

The twenty-odd burly men behind him joined in with unrestrained, mocking laughter.

In their eyes, the young man in his early twenties standing before them was a clown.

Suddenly, the laughter stopped short.

Yang Feng's presence changed abruptly.

All expression vanished from his face, and a blade appeared out of thin air in his hand.

It was about half a foot shorter than Ghost Head, with a silver-white blade, a coldly gleaming edge, and a row of tiny ancient seal-script characters engraved along its spine.

This was the Life-Bound Blade he had paid an enormous price to obtain, and it had never failed him in any of his previous battles.

Seeing this, Chen Na and his trusted men behind him immediately stepped back in unison, clearing a space.

The Blood Eagle Convoy members on the perimeter began whispering among themselves.

"This kid's finished. Just an ordinary guy, and he dares challenge Boss Yang."

"Young and hotheaded, I guess. He probably doesn't even know Boss Yang is a Sequence Awakened."

"I'd hand it over. It's only a blade, isn't it? How could it matter more than your life?"

Even Zhao Biao's former men in the Dawn Convoy now averted their eyes.

They had seen Shen Ye kill Zhao Biao, but Yang Feng was different. Besides him, the Blood Eagle Convoy had two other Sequence Awakened.

With such an overwhelming gap in both numbers and strength, they didn't believe Shen Ye could turn the tables.

Some were even starting to consider jumping ship to the Blood Eagle Convoy.

Holding his blade, Yang Feng stepped forward.

He was going to show this arrogant young man exactly what it meant to be a Sequence Awakened.

But Shen Ye didn't give him the chance.

Ghost Head vanished from Shen Ye's hand again.

At the same time, his pupils turned scarlet. A dark red Slaughter Mark was branded onto Yang Feng.

In that instant, Yang Feng felt as though a terrifying beast had locked onto him.

It wasn't a metaphor.

It was a real sensation rising from deep within his body.

His sword hand trembled uncontrollably, cold sweat streamed down his back, and even his teeth began to chatter faintly.

Looking into Shen Ye's scarlet eyes, he felt as though he were seeing something beyond description.

It had a human shape, but surrounding it was a presence far more ancient than human slaughter.

The intel was wrong.

Shen Ye wasn't an ordinary person at all. He wasn't even an ordinary Sequence Awakened.

No ordinary person could produce this kind of pressure.

Yang Feng mentally cursed eighteen generations of Cheng Shun's ancestors and swore a vicious oath that once he killed this young man, he would tear Cheng Shun limb from limb.

He opened his mouth to say something.

Shen Ye moved.

His figure shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bow, covering the five meters in less than a breath.

Invisible, Ghost Head sliced through the air straight toward Yang Feng's neck.

Yang Feng couldn't see anything, but his combat instincts told him death was closing in.

He raised his Life-Bound Blade across his body, barely blocking the strike on instinct alone.