"You're the one who deserves to die."
With a single effortless punch, Lin Feng pierced the guard's chest.
Before he could even scream, the guard collapsed into a pool of blood.
Not long after entering the courtyard, he spotted the only lit room in the center. Amid the many empty, unused rooms, it stood out like a banquet hall.
Just standing outside, perhaps thanks to the physical abilities of the Alucard system template,
Lin Feng could hear the conversation inside with perfect clarity.
Inside the brightly lit room, a man with an immensely fat neck slammed his wineglass onto the table and spoke, his neck flushed red:
"Boss, you've got to go scatter their ashes this time! They've gone too far!"
"I just went there for a meal, and they bullied us because they had more people? How's our Gathered Heroes Group supposed to show our faces after this?"
The underlings below chimed in:
"Exactly! They knew we belonged to the Gathered Heroes Group and still dared to attack us. Aren't they looking down on our group?"
Lin Feng found it truly unbearable to listen to these beasts.
What a pack of shameless liars. Worse than pigs and dogs...
As the underlings grew increasingly worked up, more and more voices joined in.
"We'll want a late-night snack anyway, so why don't we go back and loot everything in their shop?"
"Of course! Money, women, it all belongs to our Gathered Heroes Group!"
"Just loot everything? Seriously? Sparing their lives would already be the greatest mercy we could give them!"
"I'm going to strip that brat naked and hang him up, then bring him back tied up and keep him as livestock to whip-"
"Hey, that woman who said she'd call the guards like some idiot-wasn't she pretty good-looking?"
"Now that you mention it, she really was! Since you boys fancy her, I'll bring her back so we can have our fill, then skin her alive in front of him. How's that?"
"Why even ask? Why not invite the boys who didn't go earlier to have some fun too?"
Crash-
"?!"
The sound of shattering glass disrupted the room's boisterous atmosphere.
If they had only been mocking him, Lin Feng could have listened a little longer,
but since they had brought up Sheele, all he wanted was to send them to meet the King of Hell.
Breaking in through the window, Lin Feng looked around and checked everyone's faces.
"Hmm... looks like everyone's here."
"How'd a wet-behind-the-ears brat get in here? Where's the guard?"
"You barged in alone? Got a death wish?"
Several unfamiliar members of the Gathered Heroes Group barked at Lin Feng.
Lin Feng said nothing, continuing to count the people present,
but his still-boyish face was filled with an intense killing intent utterly at odds with his age.
Among them, an obese man wearing a gold chain snapped the expensive cigarette in his hand, more than a dozen veins bulging on his face.
"So you're the one the boys were talking about. I hadn't even come for revenge, and here you are, delivering yourself to your death. Heh..."
With that, he gestured, and a thug charged at Lin Feng with a dagger.
"Die!"
But Lin Feng merely turned slightly and raised his foot, tripping the thug to the floor.
Then Lin Feng stepped onto his back. With a crack, he easily crushed the thug's spine completely.
Having finished off one man, Lin Feng crouched without a word or a wasted movement and took the dagger from the hand of the man he had killed on the floor,
then hurled it at the gold-chained man's arm at a speed beyond human imagination.
Blood gushed out before the gold-chained man could understand what had happened.
The dagger, flying at tremendous speed, struck with the destructive force of a scythe and pierced straight through his upper arm.
"Argh!!"
He screamed, clutching his arm as he struggled.
"You damned bastard... what are you all standing around for? Cut his flesh off and feed it to the dogs!"
Enduring the excruciating pain, the gold-chained man roared. His underlings momentarily forgot Lin Feng's uncanny movements and approached him with clubs.
In mere moments, nothing remained but the clatter of clubs hitting the floor and a pool of blood.
Two heads rolled back across the floor toward the thugs. Lin Feng had effortlessly torn straight through their thick necks.
A blood-red soul emerged from each dead thug and flew toward Lin Feng, who devoured them completely.
Seeing their companions killed like this, even these drug-addled thugs realized the situation had changed.
"This brat isn't normal! All of you, attack together!"
The leader roared furiously,
yet the more Lin Feng saw their vile faces, the more enraged he became over the abuse suffered by the companions he lived alongside every day!
Eight or nine thugs charged at Lin Feng together, wielding machetes and daggers,
but Lin Feng's expression only grew colder.
"If even this can't teach you fear, then there's nothing else for it..."
With that, a strange scarlet gleam flashed through Lin Feng's eyes.
"Level Zero: River of Death-"
In an instant, a blood mist enveloped the vast room, and several strange black shadows emerged within it.
"Th-this is...!"
Since the moment he arrived, Lin Feng had disposed of four men.
Without a doubt, these shadows bore their appearances.
If he summoned the Danger Beasts, they would probably crush the house. Never mind alerting the enemy-some might slip through the net then.
Two carried clubs, one gripped a dagger, and the last was the guard carrying a spear. All of them were members of the Gathered Heroes Group, the disreputable friends these thugs spent every day with.
Now, however, they slowly approached the Gathered Heroes Group with weapons in hand, every one of their eyes as blood-red as Lin Feng's.
"Why aren't you watching the gate? What are you doing here?"
"You're not dead after all, are you? Hurry up, turn around, and kill him!"
Several Gathered Heroes Group members grew even more excited at the return of their old friends,
but the next second, their former comrades pierced their chests.
Even as they died, they never understood what sorcery this boy had used,
or why their former companions had turned their weapons on them.
At this bizarre sight, the other members gradually shook off the drugs and alcohol, retreating again and again on bodily instinct.
"What are you all standing around for? Get him!"
Even with the gold-chained man's shouts ringing in their ears, the dozen or so remaining thugs' hands trembled and went numb with fear,
shaking their machetes and clubs to the floor, their limbs too stiff to hold on any longer.
Lin Feng raised his left hand high, and all his undead apostles stopped moving.
Unless he personally eliminated this leader, the hatred in his heart would not subside.
He let out a long breath, then suddenly drove power through his feet.
In his usual training, he dragged weights on the level of Danger Beasts as he moved.
This was the first time Lin Feng had exerted the strength of his legs without carrying any weight.
Almost as easily as turning over his hand, Lin Feng appeared before the gold-chained man and punched him straight in the face.