A deathly silence filled the cave.
Lian Youming stood at the entrance, daylight streaming in as though casting his figure into the likeness of a god, a suffocating aura of savage menace spreading through the shadows.
He dusted off his chest, glanced at the corpse beside his feet, and drawled, "The Martial Way has always been a voyage against the current. Those who reach great heights must look higher and farther still. Yet you relied on what you'd learned to run wild, not even sparing ordinary people. Now that you've died under my fists, there shouldn't be much to complain about, should there?"
"Who exactly are you, sir?"
The speaker was the ordained monk, undisguised terror and utter shock in his eyes.
Lian Youming paced forward, stretching out his frame like a fierce tiger poised to pounce, and said mildly, "I made my name in the North, practice Taiji Fist, and earned a one-word epithet."
The man dressed as a Daoist frowned in urgent thought. Within seconds, his pupils abruptly contracted. "Taiji Demon?"
Lian Youming smiled. "Even people removed from the world like you have heard of a martial artist like me. You certainly are Grand Boxers, but your skills leave something to be desired."
For some reason, these people struck him as very strange.
But he could not put his finger on it. They seemed impressive on the outside, yet hollow within.
And the monk did not seem like a monk, nor the Daoist like a Daoist.
Neither had the bearing to match.
If he had to describe them, they were more like people of the martial underworld who lived on a knife's edge, with a streak of outlaw roughness.
A thought struck him. Lian Youming raised an eyebrow and probed, "You wouldn't happen to be fake monks and