Encountering the "Black Whirlwind" on the Road-Blood Drawn!

He had left Wushan Town more than half a day ago.

The familiar flagstones beneath his feet had given way to packed earth, which gradually widened into an official road broad enough for two carriages abreast. Boundless fields and occasional woods flanked the road. In the distance, the undulating black outline of the Magical Beast Mountain Range stood silently against the southern horizon, like a barrier unchanged since time immemorial.

Loa walked at a steady, unhurried pace. The pack and iron sword on his back swayed gently with his movements. He kept going over the map Steward Hiri had given him, along with what he had read in the books in the study.

West of the Magical Beast Mountain Range, the Yulan continent was primarily divided between two great powers: the Holy Union and the Dark Alliance. The Fenlai Kingdom, where he lived, was foremost among the Holy Union's six kingdoms. And Fenlai City was not only the kingdom's capital, but also the entire Holy Union's "Holy Capital"-because the Radiant Church's headquarters stood in its western district.

"The kingdom governs the east, and the Church governs the west... both a royal capital and a Holy Capital..." Loa quietly repeated the description from the books, feeling a complicated anticipation and a trace of instinctive wariness toward that magnificent city he had never seen. Over a million people, one of the five largest cities on the Yulan continent... Countless opportunities surely awaited there, along with innumerable dangers and unknowns.

Judging by the map and his walking pace, he should be able to see Fenlai City's legendary massive walls around noon tomorrow. Tonight, however, he would have to sleep in the wilderness.

As he walked, considering what sort of place would be safer to spend the night, someone suddenly stepped out from behind a crooked old tree at a bend in the road ahead.

Loa stopped, his hand naturally settling on the sword hilt behind his back.

The newcomer was an enormously fat, burly man. His round head seemed to have almost no neck, his face was fleshy and brutish, and folds of fat squeezed his little eyes into two slits. He was bare-chested, exposing a dark chest covered in body hair, and wore leather trousers so filthy their original color was impossible to tell. Most conspicuous was the axe resting on his shoulder. Its thick, heavy blade bore ominous dark-red stains, and it looked far from light. With his pitch-black complexion, he stood in the middle of the road looking every bit like an otherworldly version of the "Black Whirlwind."

Loa's heart lurched. This scene... why does it look so familiar? In those stories from my previous life, this sort of road and this sort of character almost never meant anything good. Does walking alone really make me look that easy to bully?

The dark, fat man spotted Loa as well. His little eyes first looked him up and down suspiciously. Once he saw that this was merely a half-grown boy in ordinary clothes, with a somewhat slight build despite the sword on his back, undisguised disappointment and irritation immediately spread across his face.

"Goddammit!" The fat man spat out a thick gob of phlegm, his voice harsh and grating. "I've waited half the day, and not one decent fat sheep! Another fucking wasted day!"

Still cursing, he looked at Loa again. Suddenly, he grinned, revealing uneven, blackened yellow teeth. His tongue licked his thick lips, and a deeply unsettling gleam of greed and savagery appeared in his eyes.

"Huh? Boy... you don't look particularly tender, but you look lean enough. I've gotten tired of fatty meat lately. Lean meat ought to taste... pretty good too, eh?"

That lip-licking gesture, along with those black teeth that looked as though they had been soaked in ink, instantly plunged Loa into an icy chill. Intense disgust and killing intent surged through him. Cannibalism? He had heard of the vile practice under certain extreme circumstances or among savage tribes, but this was the relatively peaceful heartland of the Holy Union, on an official road! Judging by the fat man's appearance and the stains on his axe, he was certainly not driven by famine. He was a beast who took pleasure in it and made a habit of it!

He deserves to die!

Almost the instant Loa's killing intent rose, the fat man moved. He apparently felt that dealing with a child required neither words nor caution. With a low roar, he charged at Loa like a maddened boar, axe on his shoulder! Fat as he was, his speed over a short distance was surprisingly quick. His heavy footsteps thudded against the ground as he bore down like a menacing mountain of flesh, even the wind he stirred carrying a rank stench.

Loa's gaze turned icy, and he drew his sword in an instant. The iron blade traced a cold arc in the afternoon sunlight. He neither retreated nor rashly charged to meet him. Instead, he planted his feet in a staggered stance, raised his sword point slightly, and focused entirely on the man's approach and the axe lifted high above him.

Seeing Loa take a fighting stance instead of running, the fat man's little eyes flickered with surprise, which was immediately replaced by even greater cruelty and excitement. "You little brat, you're asking to die!"

Before he finished speaking, he was already upon him. Using the momentum of his charge, he brought the heavy axe straight down toward Loa's head with a heart-stopping rush of air! There was nothing fancy about the blow, only an outpouring of brute strength, as though he meant to cleave both Loa and his sword in two!

Loa did not meet it head-on. At the instant the axe blade reached him, he moved. With an agile shift of his feet, his body drifted half a step sideways like willow fluff in the wind. At the same time, rather than blocking, his iron sword slid along the outside of the descending axe haft, guiding it upward and outward with its momentum!

Clang!

Sword and axe did not collide squarely, producing only a faint scraping impact. Loa felt an immense surge of force through his blade, far beyond what he had expected! The fat man's sheer arm strength was probably close to, or even at, the level of a Rank 4 Warrior! His wrist dipped slightly, and the warm current within him instantly accelerated into his arm. Only then did he barely steady himself and divert most of the force, though the web of his sword hand still tingled from the shock.

What incredible strength!

The fat man's axe missed, and the deflection tugged him slightly off balance, making him even angrier. "Huh? You've got a trick or two!" Roaring, he twisted and swept his axe sideways, its whistling blade covering a considerable area.

But Loa had already used the force of that deflection to retreat lightly two steps, observing calmly. That single exchange had given him a clear assessment: the fat man possessed terrifying strength and decent explosive speed, but he was extremely clumsy when turning or changing direction, and endurance was probably another weakness. His attacks were also straightforward and utterly unstructured, relying entirely on ferocity.

As the axe swept toward his waist, Loa changed his footwork again. Like a butterfly weaving among flowers, he ducked and stepped forward, slipping beneath the blade by a hair's breadth and instantly closing on the opening at the fat man's right side left by his swing!

Alarmed, the fat man had no time to bring his axe back to defend himself. He could only wrench his obese body around, trying to ram Loa with his shoulder.

Loa's gaze sharpened, and his iron sword shot out like a snake flicking its tongue! "Qi" gathered at its tip, and it moved so fast that only a blurred streak of cold light remained!

Thwip!

The tip struck precisely beneath the fat man's right shoulder blade. It did not penetrate deeply, but it was enough to make him howl in pain and falter.

"Argh! You little bastard!" The fat man was shocked and furious. He had never expected this seemingly frail boy to be so slippery, or his swordsmanship so tricky. He swung his axe wildly, hacking left and right, trying to drive Loa back with strength and broad, sweeping attacks.

Yet Loa clung to him like an affliction that would not go away, always moving along the edge of his axe's reach. His Rank 3 Warrior physique, the precise grasp of distance and timing gained through long practice of Gale Thrust, and the enhancement his internal "qi" provided to his speed and reactions allowed him complete control of the tempo. In his eyes, every full-strength swing the fat man made was filled with clumsy tells and enormous openings.

He was like the most patient of hunters, in no hurry to deliver a killing blow. Instead, he used his agile movements to evade deadly axe strikes time and again, while the iron sword in his hand became the nimblest of venomous wasps, darting into every opening.

Thwip! A bloody hole appeared on the outside of the left thigh.

Slash! A cut opened beneath the right ribs.

Shick! The axe-wielding left arm was pierced as well.

Before long, seven or eight bloody holes of varying depths marked the fat man's body. Although his thick skin and flesh had kept him from suffering any critical injuries for the moment, the constant bleeding, pain, and steadily draining strength made him increasingly terrified. He realized he could not even touch the boy's clothes, while the boy's sword always found its mark. This brat was like a ghost!

"Raaagh!" The fat man roared like a cornered beast and forced Loa back a short distance with his axe. Rather than attack again, he abruptly turned, dragging his bleeding body toward the woods beside the road in an attempt to escape! He understood now that he had run into someone he could not handle. This was no tender morsel of "food," but a little fiend come to claim his life!

"Trying to run?" Loa's gaze chilled. Sparring practice ends here. This cannibal must die!

He drew a deep breath. The "qi" within him surged, instantly pouring into his legs and his sword-bearing right arm. He kicked hard against the ground and shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bow, moving nearly twice as fast as before! It was the opening movement of Gale Thrust, honed through countless repetitions, but this time unleashed at full strength with fierce killing intent!

Hearing the rush of air behind him, the fat man turned his head in terror. All he saw was a point of cold light rapidly expanding before his eyes, far too fast for him to make any effective response.

"No..."

Squelch!

The iron sword pierced with unerring precision through the left eye socket he exposed as he looked back, passing unhindered through the eyeball and deep into his skull. Following the muscle memory formed through countless practice sessions, Loa coldly twisted his wrist and churned the blade!

The fat man's scream cut off abruptly. His enormous body stiffened for an instant, then crashed to the ground like a sack of flesh stripped of its bones, throwing up a cloud of dust. Blood mixed with grayish-white brain matter gushed from the hole in his eye socket.

Loa pulled out his sword, flicked the red and white matter from the blade, and stepped back twice, panting slightly. He watched the corpse on the ground rapidly lose its warmth, his heart pounding powerfully in his chest with a strange, burning rhythm.

None of the nausea, revulsion, or fear he had expected came. Only a feeling of unrestrained exhilaration rose through his entire body, mingled with the excitement of victory, the satisfaction of ridding the people of a menace, and confirmation of the power he possessed. So this was what it felt like to use the skills he practiced every day in a fight to the death.

Fighting feels great!

He steadied his breathing and his slightly quickened heartbeat, then crouched to check the fat man's belongings. Looting the corpse was essential. From a sour-smelling leather pouch, he retrieved several dozen copper coins, seven or eight worn silver coins, and assorted odds and ends whose uses he could not identify. Apart from those, the man had nothing. It seemed he was merely a roaming bandit with crude methods.

After putting the coins away, Loa dug a shallow pit beside the road, dragged the fat man's corpse into it, and hastily buried him, at least keeping the body from lying exposed beside the road and attracting more trouble. By the time he finished, evening was approaching.

He left the official road and ventured deep into the woods beside it, finding a sheltered, concealed spot near water. With his short dagger, he deftly dressed an unlucky wild rabbit that came his way and lit a small campfire. The rabbit sizzled and dripped fat over the flames, and he sprinkled it with a little salt brought from Wushan Town. With the roast rabbit and the buns in his clothes that had already grown somewhat dry and hard, he slowly ate his first outdoor meal since leaving home.

The taste was ordinary, but it was enough to replenish his strength. Firelight illuminated his calm, resolute young face, and a light hotter than the flames danced in his eyes.

Once he had eaten and drunk his fill, he extinguished the campfire and carefully covered its traces with earth. He sat against a large tree, holding his sword in his arms, and closed his eyes to rest while listening in every direction. The "qi" within him slowly circulated on its own, dispelling fatigue and nourishing the minor wear caused by the day's battle and long trek.

Tomorrow, he would see Fenlai City.