"Who are we? Hmph, naturally, we're the ones here to take your lives!"
Among the group, a young man burst into wild, arrogant laughter. Even his mask could not conceal his smugness, as though victory were already in his grasp.
"The Jia Lie Family?" Xiao Qian's voice suddenly turned ice-cold. "Jia Lie Ao!"
"What?" The young man's laughter stopped abruptly, and a flicker of surprise flashed through his eyes. "What nonsense are you spouting?"
"Stop playing dumb. Every time we go out drinking, it's your Jia Lie Family's people who show up most often. Besides, that revolting stench of yours makes me sick even from a mile away." A cold smile curled Xiao Qian's lips, his eyes brimming with disdain.
"Damn it! You dare insult me, you bastard!" Jia Lie Ao roared, tearing the black cloth off his face and pointing his sword straight at Xiao Qian. "You'll be the first to die by my sword!"
"So it really is you. I wasn't entirely sure before."
Xiao Qian muttered under his breath.
"Kill them! Kill them all! Leave the little beauty alive!"
Jia Lie Ao issued his orders in a furious rage, but he did not let his anger cloud his judgment enough to charge in alone.
His reaction disappointed Xiao Qian, who had deliberately provoked him. He had hoped to take Jia Lie Ao down first.
"Take Xiao Yan and go!"
Xiao Qian's expression grew grave, and his awareness swiftly sank into his dantians.
Within those strange nine dantians, six were encircled by gleaming golden chains, like mysterious seals.
"B-but they're all Dou Zhe!" Xiao Yu clenched her teeth, resolve flashing in her eyes. "I'll stay and help you!"
"A few Dou Zhe won't be enough to take my life." Xiao Qian's voice was soft, yet carried unquestionable conviction. "But if you stay, all of us will die here."
Xiao Yu's eyes reddened instantly. To her, Xiao Qian was sacrificing his own life to buy them time to escape, making a final, desperate stand to cover their retreat!
"You have to hold on! I'll go back to the clan and bring help right away!" Fighting back her tears, Xiao Yu swiftly hoisted Xiao Yan onto her back-the very person who had just made her grind her teeth with hatred-and sprinted toward the lakeshore.
"Trying to run? Hehe, do you really think you can escape?" With a sinister chuckle, a burly black figure appeared before Xiao Yu like a phantom, blocking her path.
Xiao Yu clenched her teeth, Dou Qi surging throughout her body as she prepared to fight to the death.
"If I say you can leave, then you can leave."
The next instant, Xiao Qian's steady voice rang in everyone's ears. His figure flashed, and he sent a seemingly weightless punch toward the dark figure.
"You're just a piece of trash with third-stage Dou Qi. Who gave you the guts?"
The Jia Lie Family guard clearly knew their details. His face full of contempt, he did not take Xiao Qian seriously at all. "You think that brute strength of yours can beat every Dou Zhe? I'm a Five-Star Dou Zhe!"
Bang! Fist met palm. In that instant, the contempt on the guard's face froze, then turned to terror.
He felt an overwhelming force, powerful enough to topple mountains and overturn seas, surge from Xiao Qian's fist. At the moment of contact, a sharp crack came from his wrist.
As though struck by lightning, the dark figure staggered several steps backward, his face filled with horror. An unbearable pain stabbed through his wrist. That seemingly weightless punch had actually broken it!
"You... there's no way you only have third-stage Dou Qi!"
For a moment, the lakeshore fell deathly silent. Even Xiao Yu, who had been fleeing for her life, involuntarily stopped and stared in shock at Xiao Qian's tall, striking back.
"Go."
Xiao Qian uttered that single word calmly. Then, rather than retreating in the slightest, he charged straight at the enemy.
"I do indeed have one dantian with third-stage Dou Qi..." Xiao Qian said as he charged, his voice echoing through the woods.
"But I also have five dantians with..." His delivery remained unhurried, each word striking their hearts like a heavy hammer.
"Ninth-stage Dou Qi!"
The youth's casually spoken words spread swiftly through the woods along with his charging figure, yet everyone who heard them wore a blank expression, their eyes filled with bewilderment.
What was going on? Why had his words suddenly stopped making sense?
"Forty-eight stages of Dou Qi. Round that off, and calling me a Five-Star Dou Zhe isn't unreasonable, right?"
Xiao Qian struck again, effortlessly breaking another Five-Star Dou Zhe's arm before making that leisurely remark.
"What Five-Star Dou Zhe beats other Five-Star Dou Zhe as easily as dogs?!" Utterly terrified, Jia Lie Ao scrambled backward, shouting as he retreated, "Get him! Hurry up! Aren't you two Eight-Star Dou Zhe? Kill him already!"
"That's because I'm a genius. A genius beating opponents of the same level like dogs is perfectly reasonable too, right?" Xiao Qian's lips lifted slightly in a confident smile.
Before the two Eight-Star Dou Zhe could charge forward, he had already effortlessly knocked down all the other Dou Zhe. They lay sprawled every which way, unable to fight.
"Battle really does set the blood boiling." Xiao Qian rolled his neck slightly, producing a series of crisp cracks, then advanced step by step. He stood before the two Eight-Star Dou Zhe as steadily as a mountain, his presence no weaker than theirs.
"This ends here, you freak!" the two Eight-Star Dou Zhe roared together. It was hard to tell whether their shouts held more anger or an attempt to bolster their own courage.
"Whew." Xiao Qian drew a deep breath, then slowly exhaled, feeling the Dou Qi throughout his body surge like a rushing river.
It had been a long time since he had experienced such an exhilarating battle.
These two Eight-Star Dou Zhe can serve as the measure of everything I've built up over these six years.
"Yellow Tier Mid-Grade Dou Technique, Raging Wind Fist!"
The Eight-Star Dou Zhe were formidable, incomparable to Five-Star Dou Zhe. Combining their Dou Qi and Dou Techniques perfectly, they unleashed considerable destructive power in an instant.
Dou Qi wreathed their fists, transforming into gusts of fierce wind that swept toward Xiao Qian.
Xiao Qian focused and gathered his energy, swiftly raising his fist to meet the attack. Dou Qi poured continuously into it, then he punched out, meeting his opponent head-on.
Boom! The instant their fists collided, countless green wind blades surged along his opponent's arm like a tide and swept over Xiao Qian, leaving several conspicuous white marks on his body.
"That's impossible!" The guard who had unleashed the Dou Technique wore an incredulous expression. He simply could not imagine how tough a body would have to be to withstand such a fierce attack without suffering even a single bloody scratch.
"I'll cut you down!" Seeing this, the other guard shouted and raised his saber, bringing it down savagely at Xiao Qian. Its radiance flashed, exposing a chilling edge, as though it would cleave him in two.
Facing that incomparably sharp saber radiance, Xiao Qian chose not to take it head-on. He pivoted on his feet and nimbly dodged again and again, each vicious slash passing perilously close to him.
Seeing an opening, the guard who had used the fist technique immediately followed up with raised fists. He unleashed his Dou Technique without pause, sending wind blades and gusts from his punches surging toward Xiao Qian.
Under wave after wave of attacks, the white marks on Xiao Qian's body gradually multiplied, and the wind blades shredded his shirt into tatters.
"Kill him!" Jia Lie Ao screamed himself hoarse from his hiding place behind them, his eyes filled with terror and urgency.
"I really am looking a little bedraggled..." Xiao Qian frowned slightly. Seizing a fleeting opening, he suddenly exerted his strength and forced both men back, then retreated several steps himself to create some distance.
"It's been a long time since I last used a Dou Technique. With the amount of Dou Qi I have now, I can just barely use this one," Xiao Qian murmured to himself.
Then the Dou Qi throughout his body began circulating along a particular route through his meridians. Its color gradually turned pitch-black, gathering over his hands like a black torrent.
An intense black radiance completely enveloped his palms. A strange, powerful aura emanated from him, chilling them to the bone. Even the surrounding air seemed to freeze.
The two Eight-Star Dou Zhe exchanged a glance, each seeing deep unease in the other's eyes. Instinctively, both retreated while unleashing the strongest Dou Techniques they knew.
"Yellow Tier High-Grade Dou Technique, Gale Palm!" One thrust both palms forward, Dou Qi pouring wildly from his body and transforming into a palm of raging wind. Formed from pure Dou Qi and surrounded by howling gusts, it slammed toward Xiao Qian, bending trees every which way along its path.
"Yellow Tier High-Grade Dou Technique, Wind-Cleaving Saber!" The other raised his long saber high and brought it down forcefully. A streak of saber radiance slashed out like lightning, carrying a fierce momentum as it converged on Xiao Qian together with the Gale Palm.
For a moment, violent winds raged through the woods, sending sand and stones flying.
Hiding behind them, Jia Lie Ao could only cling desperately to a tree trunk, barely keeping himself from being blown away by the powerful gale.
At that moment, everyone's attention was focused on this life-or-death battle. No one had any attention to spare for him.
"Black Tier Mid-Grade Dou Technique... Blade-Devouring Claw!"
Xiao Qian shouted inwardly. His hands transformed in an instant into two pitch-black claws. Black radiance flashed through his eyes, and he lunged forward like lightning.
The pitch-black claw radiance instantly tore through the air with unstoppable momentum, slicing through the emerald whirlwind like sharp blades.
Shhk! The two Eight-Star Dou Zhe saw only a streak of black radiance flash past on either side, too fast for them to react.
Then they felt a chill at their necks, and an icy dread shot from the soles of their feet straight to their hearts.
"Urgh..." Painful groans escaped their throats. Then, with two thuds, the figures behind Xiao Qian dropped straight to their knees. Their hands instinctively clamped over their necks, yet could not stop the blood gushing out. It poured onto the ground like a spring, staining a patch of earth red.
The wind gradually died away, and the leaves swept into the sky by the gale drifted down slowly like snowflakes.
"It's over." The black claws on Xiao Qian's hands vanished, and he slowly turned around. Traces of black energy still lingered in his eyes, scaring Jia Lie Ao, who clung to the tree trunk ahead, nearly out of his wits.
"Don't... don't kill me..." Jia Lie Ao's mind went blank, his face white as paper. He felt as though he were trapped in an utterly terrifying nightmare, unable to accept anything before his eyes.
How was this possible? During the Xiao Clan's test that very day, he had clearly only possessed third-stage Dou Qi. How could he have gained such terrifying strength in so little time-not only effortlessly defeating Five-Star Dou Zhe, but even slitting the throats of two Eight-Star Dou Zhe in a single move?!
I must be dreaming...
Jia Lie Ao kept screaming inwardly. At that moment, how desperately he wished he could wake from this nightmare.
But reality was cruel. Only a nightmarish figure slowly approached him, its dark silhouette looming over him like a demon beneath the moonlight.
"What should I do with this fellow..." Xiao Qian lightly tapped his brow with a finger, a plan gradually forming in his eyes.
Letting someone scheme against me without paying them back isn't my style.
Before you continue