Chapter Summaries

After sacrificing a black goat, Cheng Sheng tested his enhanced body and discovered a brief strength-boosting ability he named Power of the Ram. Back home, he learned that Cheng Yue planned to live at school, then asked his mother whether the alert in Kunsha District had ended and the wanted criminal had been caught.

• Cheng Sheng admired his stronger, more charming body and recalled that the Intermediary Demon had protected him during the sacrifice.
• Cheng Sheng tested his strength on a coconut tree, triggered a sudden surge of power, and cracked its trunk with a punch.
• Cheng Sheng confirmed that recalling the black goat activated the strength boost and named the ability Power of the Ram.
• Cheng Sheng heard that Cheng Yue had borrowed a classmate's phone, and Wu Li said Cheng Yue would live at school.
• Wu Li told Cheng Sheng that she and his father would be busy after clients switched from Golden Valley Travel Agency, and Cheng Sheng asked whether the Kunsha District alert had been lifted.

Cheng Sheng prepared for his boxing gym assessment while reflecting on the danger of the Sucha Street fugitive. Meanwhile, Cheng Yue left home with her friends after a family argument, and they took her somewhere mysterious before Cheng Sheng arrived at the lively gym.

• Wu Li warned Cheng Sheng to avoid Kunsha District and reminded him that his father planned to use next month's Black Tide tours to defeat Golden Valley.
• Wu Li prayed for Cheng Sheng's assessment and worried that he might get hurt, while Cheng Sheng doubted that Datuk Gong would bless him.
• Cheng Yue told her friends she had fallen out with her family after her brother reported her, and she said she had applied to live at school.
• Cheng Yue's friends persuaded her to skip class and promised to take her somewhere that would help her pass the SAT; she agreed, and they drove off in their red jeep.
• Cheng Sheng rode a minibus to the boxing gym, where he saw people feeding Dongni and worshippers kneeling before the statue of Ruesi.

Cheng Sheng competed in the Black Killing Boxing Gym’s assessment for official disciples, where contestants fought through successive rounds for a scarce place. After easily advancing when his first opponent fled with stomach trouble, Cheng Sheng entered the second round and faced a stocky man who attacked him by surprise.

• Cheng Sheng met Badan and Song Cai at the assessment, and Song Cai explained that he had returned the stolen phone and money and planned to start work at a coconut sugar factory.
• Sha Lie appeared alongside Songpa and Sulai, and the gym began the assessment with forty-seven contestants drawing opponents.
• Cheng Sheng’s first-round opponent ran out of the ring less than two minutes into their match, while Badan also advanced.
• During the break, Zhou Wenye tried to approach Sulai but backed off after Sha Lie gave him a cold look.
• Cheng Sheng began his second-round match against a stocky middle-aged fisherman, who distracted him with a gesture before throwing a vicious punch at his face.

Cheng Sheng won his match at the gym, impressing the people around him, but the assessment turned alarming when Zhou Wenye seriously injured another trainee. The chapter ended with the referees confronting Zhou Wenye as he defended his actions.

• Cheng Sheng fought the middle-aged man, anticipated his attempted second trick, and won by knocking him out of bounds.
• Song Cai watched Cheng Sheng with a complicated expression as Cheng Sheng returned to the rest area.
• Cheng Sheng hurried toward a crowd after someone shouted that a trainee had been beaten to death.
• Cheng Sheng found a trainee convulsing on the sand with a severe facial bruise and recognized Zhou Wenye as the attacker.
• Songpa and Sulai arrived, and Zhou Wenye claimed the injured trainee had charged at him and that the face was not a vital point.

Cheng Sheng faced Zhou Wenye in the third round and launched a surprise attack, while the judges recognized Zhou Wenye’s Ruan Clan technique as the Killer Bee. Cheng Sheng dodged Zhou Wenye’s rapid counterpunch, revealing the gap between their fighting abilities.

• Songpa stopped the crowd from interfering after Zhou Wenye injured another trainee and asked whether Ruan had taught him his move.
• Cheng Sheng drew Zhou Wenye as his third-round opponent, and Badan warned him that Zhou Wenye had trained for years and was close to Nurturing Sha.
• Cheng Sheng ignored his friends’ pleas to concede and entered the arena to fight Zhou Wenye.
• Cheng Sheng tricked Zhou Wenye into looking toward the judges’ table, then struck him with the Power of the ram.
• Songpa identified Zhou Wenye’s style as the Ruan Clan’s Killer Bee, and Sulai revealed Cheng Sheng had trained for only eighteen days.
• Zhou Wenye rushed Cheng Sheng with a fast punch, and Cheng Sheng narrowly dodged it.

Cheng Sheng defeated Zhou Wenye by using the Power of the Ram to land a knee strike after dodging his relentless attacks. Sha Lie then revealed that Cheng Sheng would not need to compete in the final round.

• Cheng Sheng struggled to keep up with Zhou Wenye's attacks and used his Sparrow Spirit reactions to dodge while staying inside the ring.
• Cheng Sheng pretended to concede, ducked into Zhou Wenye's guard, and struck his lower abdomen with a Power of the Ram knee.
• Cheng Sheng caught Zhou Wenye as he fell, then let him drop to his knees and taunted him.
• Sha Lie rebuked Zhou Wenye for causing trouble at the Black Killing Style dojo, and Zhou Wenye's bodyguards carried him away.
• Sha Lie announced a fifteen-minute break, then told Cheng Sheng that he did not need to compete in the final round.

Sha Lie learned that Su Tai had been summoned to Bangtun to pursue a dangerous fugitive, and heard that only a Fist Master could truly stand against Curse Arts. Cheng Sheng and the other new formal disciples reviewed the Black Killing Style’s rules, and one quit after Songpa explained that the school enforced its own punishments.

• Sha Lie reported Zhou Wenye’s connection to the Ruan Clan to Su Tai, who told him to handle the matter himself.
• Su Tai told Sha Lie he was going to Bangtun after Wengzan summoned fighters to hunt a fugitive who had killed two curse masters.
• Su Tai explained that a Fist Master could resist Curse Arts to some extent, though the Black Killing Style had never produced one, and urged Sha Lie to keep striving.
• Songpa gave Cheng Sheng and the three other selected disciples documents detailing their benefits, obligations, and the Black Killing Style’s punishments.
• One new disciple challenged the rules, learned that the Black Killing Style enforced them itself, and left; Songpa asked Cheng Sheng and the other two whether they would also quit.

After passing the Black Killing Boxing Gym’s assessment, Cheng Sheng prepared to use his new allowance to obtain a crocodile for his third sacrifice. The next morning, he joined two other formal disciples and Sulai for a half-month training course at an undisclosed location.

• Songpa told Cheng Sheng and the other two new disciples that they could be eliminated during their introductory training and that only core disciples could receive the gym’s tattoo.
• Cheng Sheng returned home, considered whether Zhou Wenye might retaliate, and decided to prepare for a third sacrifice by trying to buy a crocodile.
• Cheng Sheng called his mother, Wu Li, to tell her about the special training, then read the Black Book and found that its second page remained closed.
• Cheng Sheng arrived at the gym with his backpack and met the other two disciples and Sulai, who said she would accompany them throughout the half-month course.
• Sulai drove the three disciples away from the gym in a diesel-powered three-wheeler, after asking whether they had eaten breakfast.

Sulai took Cheng Sheng and two other recruits through a swamp to a training site containing enormous saltwater crocodiles and a giant fossilized skeleton, then led them to pay respects at a crocodile shrine. In Qingsha City, Zhou Wenye recovered from his injuries and plotted revenge against Sulai and the Black Killing Boxing Gym.

• Sulai drove Cheng Sheng and the two recruits through a rubber plantation and rainforest to a vast swamp, then led them across wooden stakes toward the training site.
• Cheng Sheng and the other recruits saw a pool filled with enormous saltwater crocodiles and a fossilized crocodile skeleton more than twenty meters long.
• Sulai told the recruits to leave their luggage and follow her to pay respects at the crocodile shrine.
• A woman treated Zhou Wenye's injuries with mud bee stingers and told him he would recover within a month if he avoided strenuous activity.
• Zhou Wenye blamed Sulai and the Black Killing Boxing Gym for his injuries and humiliation, then asked the woman how to destroy the gym and kill its fighters.

Zhou Wenye hired Ruan Wen to arrange the killing of the young man who had beaten him, while Sulai brought Cheng Sheng and the others to an island to begin training in the Black Killing Style’s secret technique. Sulai explained the Black Tide’s dangers and began demonstrating how martial inheritance could shape a fighter’s abilities.

• Zhou Wenye asked Ruan Wen to help him take revenge, and she agreed to send Acu to kill the young man who had beaten him.
• Sulai explained that the enormous Crocodile Bones and nearby crocodiles had been affected by a Black Tide creature whose corpse had formed the swamp.
• Sulai told Cheng Sheng that the Black Tide’s Strange Mist could awaken hidden evil spirits, then directed the three trainees to settle into the island cabin before training.
• Cheng Sheng checked that his phone had a signal and thought about obtaining the Crocodile Bones and mutated crocodiles as offerings.
• Sulai assessed Mo Jiang, Cheng Sheng, and Tong Huan, then began demonstrating how the Black Killing Style’s inheritance could give fighters different abilities.

Sulai taught Cheng Sheng and the other new disciples about fighting realms and the Black Killing Style’s secret art, then put them through demanding training. Mo Jiang continued to question Cheng Sheng’s rapid rise, leaving their rivalry unresolved.

• Sulai demonstrated the Black Killing Style’s [Spiny Skin] secret art and explained the dangerous secret art used by Zhou Wenye’s Ruan Clan Fighting Art.
• Sulai described the Nurturing Sha and Body Sha realms, then began teaching the disciples how to practice the Black Killing Style’s Body Tempering secret art.
• Cheng Sheng struggled to control the warm current from the secret medicine as he and the others trained on the swamp island with new crocodile-inspired exercises.
• Mo Jiang confronted Cheng Sheng about supposedly defeating Zhou Wenye and passing his assessment just eighteen days after starting to practice fighting, then walked away without explaining his suspicion.
• Tong Huan told Cheng Sheng that Mo Jiang trained obsessively, while Cheng Sheng realized Mo Jiang resented the legend of his rapid progress.

Cheng Sheng left special training early to travel to Balai City and collect a crocodile for his third sacrifice. He arranged to have it delivered to a rented warehouse, despite a warning that a Black Tide might arrive that night.

• Cheng Sheng received a message that his reserved sacrificial crocodile was ready in Balai City and persuaded Sulai to grant him up to three days' leave.
• Mo Jiang accused Cheng Sheng of fleeing an upcoming assessment, while Tong Huan regretted that Cheng Sheng had left before he could find an excuse to go.
• Cheng Sheng traveled to Balai City, where the farm owner told him to return the next day because it was too late to collect the crocodile.
• Cheng Sheng bought a large, plump crocodile that had eaten a person and judged it suitable for his third sacrifice.
• The farm owner warned Cheng Sheng that a Black Tide might prevent delivery, but Cheng Sheng arranged for the crocodile to be taken to his rented warehouse and learned that the delivery would cost extra.

Cheng Sheng performed his third Dark Sacrifice in an abandoned warehouse, offering a crocodile in the hope of improving his Black Killing Style martial arts. The crocodile vanished into a black vortex, and Cheng Sheng waited to see whether the other side would grant his request.

• Cheng Sheng ignored a Black Tide warning and prepared a bound crocodile for his third sacrifice.
• Cheng Sheng nailed the crocodile's limbs and tail to the warehouse floor, studying its sudden struggles as an example of Black Killing Style's martial intent.
• Cheng Sheng drew a sacrificial array with crocodile blood and summoned the Black Book's power in the dark warehouse.
• Cheng Sheng completed the Dark Sacrifice, and the crocodile sank into a black vortex.
• Cheng Sheng asked the other side to improve his Black Killing Style and, if possible, grant him a trait like [Power of the Ram].

After sacrificing a crocodile, Cheng Sheng received demonic power that let him master and optimize the Black Killing Style Secret Art, greatly strengthening his body. When he left the warehouse, he discovered that the Black Tide had spread through the area and he had been caught outside.

• Cheng Sheng sacrificed a crocodile and endured a painful transformation as demonic power coursed through his body.
• Cheng Sheng mastered Body Tempering and an optimized form of the Black Killing Style Secret Art, gaining strength and dark, pronounced keratinous armor.
• Cheng Sheng combined the secret art with Power of the Ram and punched a deep, fractured indentation into a warehouse wall without injuring his hand.
• Cheng Sheng opened the warehouse doors and saw black mist drifting outside, realizing the Black Tide had spread through the area where he was stranded.

Cheng Sheng followed his Primordial Mark through the Strange Mist to an abandoned theater, where a hanging woman attacked him. The Primordial Mark absorbed the Evil Spirit, grew stronger, and left Cheng Sheng wondering what he had encountered.

• Cheng Sheng followed the Primordial Mark away from the warehouse and through the Strange Mist to the abandoned Pongwara Grand Theater.
• Cheng Sheng entered a screening room and found the Primordial Mark throbbing near the screen.
• A projector suddenly started, and a woman hanging from the ceiling lunged at Cheng Sheng.
• The woman tried to retreat, but the Primordial Mark pulled her into Cheng Sheng’s glabella.
• Cheng Sheng regained the ability to move as the Primordial Mark grew more solid and developed black traces.

Cheng Sheng discovered that the Primordial Mark could devour evil spirits in the Strange Mist and saw a terrifying Black Tide creature pass the abandoned cinema. When two urban explorers arrived, he tried to stop them from screaming, then fled as their cries risked drawing the creature back.

• Cheng Sheng learned that the Primordial Mark had absorbed the female evil spirit’s soul fragments and realized Black Tide entities could provide nourishment for its growth.
• Cheng Sheng inspected the abandoned cinema, then hid when he heard a strange clacking sound outside.
• Cheng Sheng watched a tall, grinning Black Tide creature pass the cinema without noticing him.
• A girl in a pink hoodie and a boy with a DV camera approached the cinema to investigate rumors about Sister-in-law Asang’s ghost.
• Cheng Sheng opened the door, and the two explorers mistook him for a ghost and screamed.
• Cheng Sheng kicked the girl to the ground and hurried away, afraid their screams would attract the Black Tide creature.

Cheng Sheng returned to Qingsha and arrived at the Mamba Fighting Arena, where Sulai arranged for him to fight despite warnings that his opponent, Blue Dragon Weiji, was a Nurturing Sha expert. The chapter ended with Lunba assigning Cheng Sheng the ring nickname “School Uniform Fierce Tiger.”

• Cheng Sheng left Balai by train, reflecting on the Black Tide and considering whether he would become a Black Tide Chaser.
• Sulai called Cheng Sheng and gave him the address of the Mamba Fighting Arena, where special training had moved into live matches.
• Mo Jiang won another fight, rejected Lunba’s offer to sign him, and heard that Cheng Sheng was on his way.
• Cheng Sheng arrived at the arena as Blue Dragon Weiji’s next opponent, despite Lunba and the others warning that Weiji could overpower him.
• Sulai ordered Lunba to let Cheng Sheng fight, and Lunba announced his nickname as “School Uniform Fierce Tiger.”

Mo Jiang questioned Cheng Sheng’s talent while Sulai and Lunba discussed the dangers of his upcoming match with Blue Dragon Weiji. Cheng Sheng silenced a hostile crowd by kicking a bottle back into its thrower, then faced Weiji as the audience demanded violence.

• Mo Jiang told Sulai that Cheng Sheng showed no signs of genius and had only beaten Zhou Wenye through tricks and luck.
• Sulai defended her uncertainty about Cheng Sheng, while Mo Jiang said the match would prove his point.
• Cheng Sheng entered the ring in a school uniform and kicked a bottle back into the stands, knocking out the man who threw it.
• The crowd began chanting for violence as Blue Dragon Weiji approached Cheng Sheng and said they wanted him beaten to death.

Cheng Sheng faced Blue Dragon Weiji in the arena and took his first punch without appearing hurt. He revealed his mastery of the Black Killing Style Secret Art, leaving the spectators stunned and Mo Jiang devastated.

• Cheng Sheng provoked Blue Dragon Weiji by asking for his Blue Mongkhon, and the gong signaled the start of their match.
• Blue Dragon Weiji charged and landed a heavy punch on Cheng Sheng while Sulai and the others watched anxiously.
• Cheng Sheng raised his head, said the punch did not hurt, and gripped Weiji's wrist.
• Cheng Sheng tore off his jacket and revealed black keratinous armor covering his upper body, which Sulai recognized as Spiny Skin.
• Mo Jiang retreated in despair over Cheng Sheng's apparent mastery of the Black Killing Style Secret Art, while Tong Huan exclaimed that Cheng Sheng's talent came in waves.

After defeating Weiji, Cheng Sheng learned that mastering the Black Killing Style’s first secret art in nine days had made him eligible to become a core disciple. Sulai explained the position’s benefits, and Cheng Sheng focused on the boxing gym’s elephant farm and asked who managed it.

• Cheng Sheng defeated Weiji, who left the ring injured, and the announcer declared Cheng Sheng the winner.
• The crowd booed and demanded refunds as Cheng Sheng left the ring.
• In the lounge, Sulai said Cheng Sheng had mastered the secret art in less than nine days, while Mo Jiang stormed out and Tong Huan admitted he could not laugh.
• Sulai told Cheng Sheng that mastering the secret art qualified him to become a core disciple, though the gym master would need to confirm his status after returning.
• Sulai explained that core disciples received a higher allowance and could manage businesses, including an elephant farm managed by Nalong.
• Cheng Sheng asked which senior brother managed the elephant farm, and Sulai named Nalong.