"What good is all that strength? Without true qi, you're nothing but a beast."
Jin Sheng slashed at Xu Hu again and again, using his true qi to keep the extraordinarily gifted Xu Hu suppressed. With every slash, he threw out another taunt, as though trying to prove something.
Little Madman lay on Xu Hu's shoulder. Seeing the wounds on Xu Hu's body multiply, he suddenly let out an enraged shriek and lunged straight at Jin Sheng.
"You're just a little beast, too!"
Jin Sheng swung his saber, a three-inch blade radiance coating its edge as it struck Little Madman.
With a miserable scream, Little Madman was sent flying.
"Hmph!"
At the sight, a cold smile curled Jin Sheng's lips.
"The guard captain is mighty!"
The guards around them who had suffered at Xu Hu and Little Madman's hands suddenly began cheering.
A swell of smug satisfaction rose in Jin Sheng's heart.
The Third Prince of Falling Cloud nodded in satisfaction as well.
Suddenly, he twisted his waist and frowned. He told a nearby guard, "Go find me some underpants, and bring me a chair while you're at it. Today, I'm going to watch how these assassins die."
After Little Madman was sent flying, Xu Hu froze in place.
Scenes suddenly flashed unbidden before his eyes.
He saw his foster mother, a tiger, lying in a pool of blood. Humans stood around her, laughing and joking, just like they were now.
Finally, he saw someone drape her flayed hide over himself and laugh.
As the memories deepened, Xu Hu's eyes grew redder, and the wild aura around him grew increasingly dense.
Had anyone been able to see inside Xu Hu's body, they would have discovered the nameless true qi within him beginning to circulate madly.
Bang!
Suddenly, a surge of power erupted from Xu Hu, stirring up a cloud of dust from the ground.
The sight instantly caught Jin Sheng's attention.
Did he... break through?
But it was far from over.
Xu Hu stood where he was, and another surge of power suddenly erupted from him.
The wild aura around him grew even denser.
Anyone watching closely would have noticed that Xu Hu's already towering frame was slowly growing at a steady pace.
Only after three successive eruptions did the aura around Xu Hu gradually settle.
By now, all the smugness on Jin Sheng's face had vanished, replaced by utter shock.
He had never seen anyone break through three times in succession.
Still less could he understand why someone who clearly possessed true qi would not use it.
At last, Xu Hu reached his limit. As his aura peaked, he suddenly moved.
"Kill!"
With a roar, Xu Hu charged straight at Jin Sheng, disregarding his injuries.
"So what if you broke through? You're dying today."
Jin Sheng's killing intent intensified. He envied the talent of the man before him. Had he possessed such talent, he would not have been trapped as a Houtian Martial Artist for so many years.
Still, even if he could never become a Xiantian Martial Artist, snuffing out a peerless genius would make it worthwhile.
"Three Peerless Strikes of the Tyrant Saber!"
Jin Sheng's aura surged, and a saber slash wreathed in black radiance swept toward Xu Hu.
Utterly fearless, Xu Hu punched straight at it.
At that very moment, the phantom of a tiger's claw appeared over his right fist.
Boom!
Saber and fist collided, unleashing a violent shock wave.
The dust dispersed. Xu Hu had blocked the strike.
The cold gleam in Jin Sheng's eyes intensified, and he raised his saber again without hesitation.
"Three Peerless Strikes of the Tyrant Saber-Second Strike!"
Facing this slash, Xu Hu chose without hesitation to meet it head-on.
After another collision, he held firm once more.
But as he withstood the strike, blood suddenly gushed like fountains from the saber wounds already covering his body.
Jin Sheng smiled mockingly at the sight. "Did you really think wounds inflicted with saber qi were that simple? The saber qi has already shattered the blood vessels beneath your wounds. Sooner or later, you'll bleed to death."
He glanced at the saber in his hand and sneered. "Thank me. I'll finish you off with the third strike."
With that, Jin Sheng swung his saber.
"Three Peerless Strikes of the Tyrant Saber-Third Strike!"
This strike carried even greater force than the previous two and went straight for Xu Hu's face. If it landed, no amount of toughness would save him.
But after losing so much blood, even Xu Hu, as powerful as a tiger, had grown weak. He could only stand there and await death.
"Die!"
Jin Sheng shouted. Already envisioning a genius falling beneath his saber, he could not help feeling a secret thrill.
"Not one of you gives me a moment's peace."
Suddenly, a voice rang out beside Jin Sheng and Xu Hu.
The next second, Jin Sheng's vision blurred, and Xu Hu disappeared.
Bang!
His third strike hit empty ground, leaving a long, narrow saber mark.
"Who's there?"
Furious, Jin Sheng raised his head.
He immediately spotted a young man standing a short distance away.
The young man wore a saber at his waist and held a small figure in his left hand-the very assassin Jin Sheng had sent flying with a slash earlier.
His right hand supported his previous target. Clearly, the three were together.
"Hiss."
Seeing Xu Hu rescued, Little Madman let out a weak hiss in Li Dao's hand. Though it remained unintelligible, he seemed somewhat happy.
"All right, worry about yourself first."
The slash Little Madman had taken had been serious, too. Fortunately, he was a Gu Child, with bronze skin and iron bones throughout his body. Otherwise, he might have died on the spot.
"Hiss."
Little Madman gave another weak hiss in response to Li Dao, then forced himself to move, climbed onto Xu Hu's shoulder, and settled down in relief.
Seeing that Little Madman was alive, much of the madness in Xu Hu's eyes faded, and he revealed a simple, guileless smile.
Li Dao was rather surprised by the sight. He had not expected Xu Hu and Little Madman to grow closer after being brought together.
Seeing the three still in the mood to interact, Jin Sheng felt thoroughly humiliated. He immediately ordered the surrounding guards, "What are you staring at? Two of these three assassins are crippled. Hurry up and kill them!"
"A hundred gold for each assassin's head!"
In Jin Sheng's view, the two strongest of the three had already lost the ability to resist. The remaining one was merely a turtle trapped in a jar.
A hundred gold?
The guards' eyes lit up, and eagerness stirred in their hearts.
They could hardly be blamed for their greed. A hundred gold was simply worth too much.
Even in prosperous Great Qian, one gold equaled a hundred taels of silver, while one tael of silver equaled a hundred copper coins.
An ordinary person earned roughly twenty copper coins a day on average. One tael of silver meant five days' earnings, one gold meant five hundred days, and a hundred gold equaled fifty thousand days of earnings-enough for an ordinary family of three to live on for a century.
One could easily imagine how tempting a hundred gold was.
"Kill!"
Finally, one guard could no longer restrain himself and charged at Li Dao and the other two with his saber raised.
Soon, the remaining guards could no longer stand still either. They drew their sabers and closed in.
What they failed to notice, however, was that some guards in the crowd showed no intention of moving forward. Instead, they were cautiously retreating.
As the guards surrounded them, Xu Hu tried to move, only for his legs to buckle.
"Leave it to me."
Alone, Li Dao could have protected himself against so many attackers. With Xu Hu and Little Madman in tow, however, he would struggle.
But then, he had a cheat.
With a thought, Li Dao opened his system panel.
[Master: Li Dao] [Physique: 9.38] [Available attribute points: 8.69]
"System, allocate the points!"
The next second, the system changed.
[Master: Li Dao] [Physique: 18.07 (Transformation available)] [Available attribute points: 0]
Huh?
Li Dao noticed a new change after the Physique entry.
Transformation available?
What did that mean?
He had no time to ponder it, however, because the heat brought by his increased Physique had already arrived.
This surge of heat came faster and fiercer than ever before, and in much greater quantity.
In an instant, Li Dao's skin flushed red, and a terrifying sense of strength rose within him.
At the same time, a cool clarity filled his mind.
In this state, everything around him seemed to empty out, as though time itself had slowed.
"This head is mine!"
A guard swung his saber at him.
Because Li Dao looked the most like a normal person, he became the guards' first target.
In Li Dao's eyes, the guard's saber moved so slowly through the air that he grew impatient.
Whoosh!
Li Dao slapped the flat of the blade.
Crack!
The next second, the blade shattered into more than a dozen pieces.
Propelled by Li Dao's strength, the broken iron fragments shot like hidden weapons toward the guards closing in from the side.
"Ah!"
"What is this?"
"What's going on?"
Some were severely wounded by the shattered blade before they could even react.
One unlucky fellow was struck directly in the eye by a fragment, which pierced into his skull and killed him miserably on the spot.
[One enemy killed. Attribute points gained: 0.18]
At that moment, the other surrounding guards attacked as well.
Because Xu Hu and Little Madman were on Li Dao's right, those guards targeted the two of them.
The heat within Li Dao came quickly and faded just as quickly. Soon, his Physique had been fully enhanced.
Just how powerful was a body with eighteen times an ordinary person's overall Physique?
What Li Dao did next demonstrated that Physique to perfection.
He pulled Xu Hu and Little Madman to his left, then lifted his leg and kicked at the guards on his right.
The leading guard's eyes bulged as the kick folded his body a full hundred and eighty degrees at the waist.
Then he flew backward like a cannonball. The men behind him tried to stop him, only to be injured by Li Dao's terrifying force as well. They spat blood and were sent flying.
That single kick knocked down dozens of guards.
After this round of enhancement, Li Dao's body had become even more agile.
Imagine strength greater than Xu Hu's combined with a body more agile than Little Madman's. What terrifying results would those two qualities produce together?
Amid the crowd, Li Dao circled around with one hand protecting Xu Hu and Little Madman while he dealt with the surrounding guards.
Even so, not a single guard could get close to the three of them.
Anyone who took Li Dao's first blow invariably died on the spot, without exception.
After barely a dozen exchanges, more than a hundred guards lay around Li Dao. Some were seriously injured, some were dying, and a smaller number were dead.
The Third Prince of Falling Cloud had only brought a little over three hundred guards in total, and Li Dao and the others had already dealt with more than a hundred earlier.
In other words, half of the remaining two hundred or so guards were now on the ground.
Accounting for those who did not dare attack Li Dao, virtually no one remained.
The sight finally brought Jin Sheng, standing nearby, back to his senses.
Another monster!
And a monster even stronger than those other two!
He also noticed that this monster had not used true qi, fighting entirely with physical strength. He could not imagine how a human could possess such a terrifying body.
But soon, excitement surged in his heart.
Killing someone with talent like this would give him an even greater sense of accomplishment.
"Everyone, stand aside!"
Hearing Jin Sheng's order, the guards reacted as though they had heard their savior calling. They backed away from Li Dao without the slightest hesitation, as if delaying even a second would show disrespect to their captain.
Jin Sheng stepped forward and said, "Though I don't know who sent you, I must first thank whoever is behind you."
"Because whichever faction it is, losing talents like you must hurt."
Hurt?
They were men from the Death Row Camp.
But Li Dao could not be bothered to explain all that now. He merely glanced behind the expert standing before him.
A young man in lavish clothing stood among a dozen or so guards.
This must be the so-called Third Prince of Falling Cloud.
Harvesting attributes was his goal, but eliminating the Third Prince of Falling Cloud was also his goal.
When the Third Prince of Falling Cloud realized the monster had fixed its gaze on him, he no longer had the leisure to watch the show.
Without hesitation, he ordered, "Captain Jin Sheng, kill these three assassins for me. Right this instant!"
"Yes!"
Jin Sheng accepted the order without hesitation, for it was exactly what he wanted.
"All you assassins will meet your deaths here today."
Jin Sheng struck without hesitation, his long saber wreathed in saber light as it shot straight toward Li Dao's face.
Li Dao gave an expert the respect he deserved. He set Xu Hu and his companion on the ground, then decisively drew the Black Iron Saber at his waist.
"Three Peerless Strikes of the Tyrant Saber!"
"Gale Saber Technique!"
In an instant, the saber wreathed in saber light collided with the saber charged with brute force.
Bang!
A figure flew backward the next second.
The figure twisted in midair and landed steadily on the ground.
"How is this possible!"
Jin Sheng stared at his trembling hand, his face filled with shock.
The moment their sabers had collided, a terrifying force had surged through his opponent's blade, forcing him to retreat to dissipate it. Even now, his hand was still trembling from that dreadful impact.
He had thought he already understood how astonishing his opponent's physique was, but he had still underestimated him. This was no longer a strength that a body like his opponent's should have been able to wield.
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