A hole was blasted through the wall, and Li Xingkong and Mike were squeezed out of the house that had trapped them, as though they had been spat out along with the concrete erupting outward.
The people outside had no time to worry about the two of them for now.
The commotion just now had been like a flashbang going off inside the building. Of the people surrounding them outside, few were still where they had been.
The intense light or sound had addled most of them, and they were on the ground, clutching their heads and howling.
Li Xingkong and Mike were no better off.
At that moment, all he could hear was a ringing in his ears.
He used his control over Spiritual Qi to bring his own mana to bear around his ears, finally settling the disturbance.
Even so, Li Xingkong lay in the mud for a full half minute before his hearing returned.
As for Mike, he had passed out entirely.
Li Xingkong merely checked Mike's injuries. Once he had roughly determined that Mike had only fainted and was in no immediate danger of dying, he saw no need to wake him in a hurry.
There was no need. Mike would not be much help even if he woke up.
Now, Luke Morgan, the greatest enemy of their group, lay curled up right in front of him.
He truly did have power and influence, and his reach extended all the way to heaven. He had even come close to capturing Li Xingkong.
But he was still an ordinary man.
Any ordinary man could feel pain, suffer injury, struggle, and be helpless.
Looking at the man rolling on the ground before him, Li Xingkong could hardly connect him with the incomparably arrogant big shot from moments ago.
Li Xingkong's own injuries were not light either.
After all, he had been closest to the explosion. Everyone else had at least been some distance away, but it had gone off right against him.
His entire right arm hung like a rag doll's and could no longer move. The bruises from the violent impacts alone were numerous enough, covering his whole body in patches of black and blue.
As for his clothes, they had long since been torn apart in the chaotic explosion.
It could be said that he could still move now entirely because the little mana left in his body was sustaining him.
After all, he had not yet completely transcended the concept of a mortal.
He did not have much to say either. He had already said what he needed to say.
Besides, Luke Morgan had just taught him a lesson:
Villains die from talking too much.
Although it had happened to Luke Morgan, Li Xingkong had also been personally involved.
Without any final reflections, and without waiting for Luke Morgan to recover, he acted.
Li Xingkong staggered forward and kicked Luke Morgan.
The kick stopped his massive body from rolling for the moment. His waist and abdomen tightened, and his whole body curled up like a shrimp.
Li Xingkong crouched beside him and felt around his waist.
Fumbling with one hand was difficult, but there was no helping it. Li Xingkong was hardly in any better shape himself.
Finding a handgun at his waist, Li Xingkong pulled it out with a trembling hand.
It was a fine gun. None of it looked like metal; it felt smooth and lustrous, with a texture like jade, and was heavy in his hand. Several gold-inlaid decorations ran along its lines.
Li Xingkong moved slowly, taking off the safety, aiming with a trembling hand, and then firing.
Without hesitation, he fired the gun in his hand with a sharp crack. A spray of blood burst from Luke Morgan's body, and then he stopped moving entirely.
After that one shot, Li Xingkong could no longer hold the gun, and it fell straight from his hand to the ground.
It was over. The dispute of the past few days and nights, the endless pursuit, could finally die down for a while.
It was not that dealing with Luke Morgan meant no one would dare come after him.
Rather, with Luke Morgan's fall, a large space had opened up in the previously crowded ranks of power.
Compared with making trouble for him, dividing up this newly available slice of cake was more important to the others.
Even though he had killed Luke Morgan, accomplishing something sensational enough to turn all of Freedom City upside down, it would amount to no more than another topic of conversation on people's lips.
A man's face was useful only while he lived. Once he died, he was nothing more than a treasure waiting to be divided.
Who knew how many politicians lurking in the shadows were even grateful to Li Xingkong?
Things seemed to be drawing to a close, and Li Xingkong did not go around finishing off the others one by one. He no longer had the strength for it.
Dragging Mike, who was still lying like a corpse on the ground, Li Xingkong slowly made his way out.
His first priority now was to recover quickly.
A healthy body was the foundation of everything; as for anything else, it did not matter.
The main energy source for his Qi Refining Method was still sunlight, so if he wanted to recover faster, he needed to find somewhere he could bask in the sun as soon as possible.
As for who would clean up the mess left here, that was no longer his concern.
Along the way, many people in Nature City had learned about him, and over the past few days, he had not had much time to conceal his abilities or destroy information about himself.
It was a little late to do that now. After all, in a networked society, a file could spread so quickly that it was hard to retrieve by ordinary means.
Still, the internet was now full of all kinds of fantastic stories and science fiction and fantasy information mixed together. Even if information about him really did get out, not many people would believe it. Besides, he would be returning to his country afterward, and a bizarre news story from a distant foreign land probably would not make it back there.
Even if it did, it would only be a bit of entertainment.
When he shuffled outside the prison building, dazzling sunlight fell on him, and Li Xingkong felt as though his whole body had been wrapped in a layer of warm, soft gauze.
The Qi Refining Technique began to take effect. It started circulating, tirelessly absorbing the surrounding sunlight into Li Xingkong's body as nourishment.
At that moment, Li Xingkong was like a little girl with no strength to fight back, pinned to the ground by his own Qi Refining Technique and unable to move.
The effect was obvious too. With energy available, Li Xingkong's body began to repair itself.
The Spiritual Qi in his body was like a diligent repairman. As the Qi Refining Technique circulated and his mana recovered, the Spiritual Qi particles also began to travel throughout his body.
The recovery of the body was the most profound field of medical research. Even now, many pathological changes in organs could not be fully treated, ultimately because the organs had undergone irreversible changes.
Irreversible meant not only that the body's own restorative power could not reverse them, but that even external manual assistance could not restore them, because the technology did not exist.
But for Li Xingkong, no physical injury was irreversible.
Even severed limbs could regrow, let alone mere fatal wounds.