"You dare insult our Brother Bazi? In your next life, remember to keep those eyes peeled!"
The Black Tiger Gang thugs around them let out excited, bloodthirsty howls.
"Chen Xuan, watch out! Dodge! He's a body-conditioning expert in the middle stage of Ming Jin! You can't take that blade!!"
On horseback, Xiao Ling'er was frightened out of her wits, every trace of color draining from her pretty face!
She knew better than anyone that Chen Xuan had only managed to enter early-stage Bright Force with the help of a Blood-Gathering Pill at noon yesterday. Even counting generously, it had been less than a day, and he did not even have an iron weapon on him! The force behind the scar-faced man's previous strike had split the web of her hand when she blocked it head-on, despite her also being in the middle stage of Ming Jin. If Chen Xuan, a novice who had just entered Ming Jin, charged straight into it, he would have no chance of survival-only broken bones and torn tendons awaited him!
Like a madwoman, Xiao Ling'er raised her red-tailed snakebone whip, trying to coil it around the scar-faced man's ankle. But he was lunging down from the steps too quickly, and the angle was completely blocked. Before she had even flicked the whip halfway out, that terrifying refined-steel saber was less than half a foot from Chen Xuan's nose!
Yet directly beneath the blade's wind, the depths of Chen Xuan's eyes remained utterly calm, without the slightest ripple.
So what if you're in the middle stage of Ming Jin? Sorry, but I was already there at noon yesterday!
Chen Xuan sneered inwardly:
But this whole street is full of watching eyes. I absolutely can't reveal my minor accomplishment realm Eight Desolations Prison-Suppressing Yang Gang. Since I'm playing the loyal hound protecting his master, I'll give the young lady a fine performance of an early-stage Bright Force fighter risking his life and narrowly defeating a powerful enemy with the clever force-redirection skills he learned carrying water!
In that lightning-flash instant, Chen Xuan not only refused to retreat half a step, but instead put on a tragic, heroic display before Xiao Ling'er, as though ready to face death and fight to his last drop of blood. Veins bulged on his neck as he threw back his voice in an earth-shaking roar:
"You won't hurt a hair on my young lady's head! Break-!!"
Before his words had faded, he seemingly drove his early-stage Bright Force blood and Qi to the limit of "imminent collapse." With his feet nailed to the ground, he neither dodged nor evaded. Crossing his arms, he turned sideways and slipped inside the blade's edge at the last possible instant, slamming both bare palms against the broad, thick side of the refined-steel saber's spine!
Bang-!!
A thunderous boom erupted outside the cloth shop!
"It's over!" Xiao Ling'er closed her eyes in despair, unable to bear watching the bloody carnage.
But the expected sound of both arms being severed never came!
Chen Xuan gave a muffled grunt, deliberately plowing his feet half a step backward across the bluestone paving. His entire face flushed crimson, making him look as though he had suffered a terrifying blow with the crushing weight of Mount Tai.
But the instant his palms touched the blade's spine, the flawless force-redirecting finesse of his major accomplishment realm Boulder Art abruptly sprang into action!
His hands were like two slippery loaches. Following the saber's savage downward momentum, they swept sharply down and left, dragging it along!
"Huh?! What's going on?!"
The scar-faced man's pupil abruptly contracted in midair!
He felt as though his sure-hit strike, carrying a full five hundred jin of force, had hacked into a mass of cotton soaked in tung oil. Those utterly bizarre hands redirected seventy or eighty percent of its full, ferocious force. Not only did he fail to split the brat's skull, but that skillful pull along his momentum threw his balance into chaos, sending his two-hundred-plus-jin body stumbling uncontrollably toward the front left!
Boom!
The refined-steel saber brushed past the hem of Chen Xuan's clothes and hacked heavily into the bluestone paving, lodging half an inch deep. At that instant, the vital area of the scar-faced man's previously well-guarded chest was left completely open, delivered defenseless before Chen Xuan's right hand!
Now! Lie down for me!
Killing intent flashed violently in Chen Xuan's eyes. His right leg drove against the ground, his waist twisted and his hips thrust forward, and his tightly clenched right fist hammered out without the slightest flourish!
To keep anyone from noticing the pale-red flames released by his Yang Gang, he compressed the domineering fiery force of the Eight Desolations Prison-Suppressing Yang Gang tightly within his fist bones. Blending it with his peak middle-stage Ming Jin blood and Qi, he turned it into an utterly vicious, bone-piercing burst of inch force, planting it squarely on the left side of the scar-faced man's chest, three inches above the pit of his heart!
Bang! Crack-!!
First came a dull thud like a battered drum being struck, followed by a series of breastbone-shattering cracks so clear they made the scalp crawl!
The savage look on the scar-faced man's face froze instantly, his lone eye bulging almost out of its socket. He felt a scorching, berserk surge of An Jin, nothing an early-stage Bright Force fighter should have possessed, blast straight through his flesh into his chest, shattering the body-conditioned ribs he took such pride in into more than a dozen broken pieces!
"Pfft-!!"
The scar-faced man threw back his head and spewed a great mouthful of blood mixed with white froth. His entire burly, two-hundred-plus-jin body looked as though it had been struck head-on by a charging rhinoceros. His feet left the ground, and he flew backward even faster than he had come!
Crash! Bang!
His body traced a bloody streak through the air, crashing into and bowling over three Black Tiger Gang thugs who had been cheering him on behind him. Then he landed facedown on the hard bluestone street and slid more than a zhang across the ground, plowing a shocking, vivid trail of blood along the street. Finally, his legs convulsed violently twice, his head lolled to one side, and he passed out completely, breathing out more than he breathed in!
Silence!
A deathlike silence instantly enveloped the entire long market street in the western city!
The autumn wind swept up a few bloodstained fallen leaves, sending them drifting slowly past the cloth shop's entrance.
The injured cloth shop assistants below the steps, the neighbors craning their necks all around, and the dozen or so Black Tiger Gang thugs clutching clubs and sabers all looked like roosters seized by the throat. Their mouths hung wide open, their eyeballs all but shattering across the ground!
One move!
It had taken just one move!
Liu Bazi, the "Beheading Blade" whose vicious reputation resounded throughout the western city's market district, a body-conditioning fighter in the middle stage of Ming Jin, had actually had his blade seized barehanded and been sent flying by a single punch from this unknown little guard in blue beside the third young lady, with even half his breastbone caved in?!
"Mother of mercy... was I seeing things? Brother Bazi got punched clean through?!"
A thug carrying a staff trembled like chaff in a sieve. The wooden weapon dropped from his hand with a clatter as he screamed in utter terror:
"A ghost! This brat in blue isn't any ordinary servant! He's a tough bastard playing pig to eat the tiger! Murder! Brother Bazi's been punched to death!"
"He's too tough! Run! Hurry back to the hall for reinforcements! Get the second boss to avenge him!!"
When the tree fell, the monkeys scattered. Seeing their boss lying motionless in a pool of blood like a dead dog, then looking at the blue-clad youth slowly withdrawing his fist, how could the remaining dozen or so thugs dare linger? Frightened out of their wits, they did not even bother carrying away the unconscious scar-faced man. Wishing their parents had given them two more legs, they cried for their fathers and mothers and scrambled and tumbled toward the end of the street in a wretched rout. In the blink of an eye, every last one had fled!
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