Chapter 54: Chapter 54
“Hahaha!”
Li Suifeng suddenly laughed:
“Gone for five years, and now you want to make your name off me?”
“Good—I’ve been wanting to see just how much you’re worth myself!”
BOOM!
Li Suifeng stamped a single step onto the bluestone paving, and the bluestone cracked apart.
His whole body shot toward Hu Ming like an arrow loosed from the string.
Beneath his green robes, his physical body was pushed to its very limit—veins bulging and knotted, brimming with power.
BOOM!
He struck out with a palm that split the air.
“Hm?”
Xu Tianyi’s expression changed drastically, and he yanked Xu Yiyi back in a frantic retreat.
“Li Suifeng, you’ve made the right choice—today only you die!”
A smile rose in Hu Ming’s eyes; without dodging or evading, he drew his long saber.
SHING!
A fierce blade qi blew his full head of black hair upward.
The saber’s light flashed and split into thirty-six streams in the air, sealing off every avenue of retreat around Li Suifeng.
“That’s Golden Saber Liu Feng’s Swift Saber: Thirty-Six Kills?”
Shock filled Wen Bubao’s eyes.
Legend held that Golden Saber Liu Feng could unleash thirty-six streams of blade qi in a single instant only after stepping into the fifth-rank—yet here Hu Ming, not yet fifth-rank, had done it.
“Good, good, good!”
“With this one stroke alone, you’ve surpassed Ba Hu by who knows how much!”
Faced with this strike, Li Suifeng’s expression did not change.
His hands had long since turned a gold-tinged blue-black; he thrust them into the saber light, his ten fingers stabbing out one after another, each strike landing on a weak point in the blade qi. In the span of a breath, all thirty-six streams of blade qi shattered.
“But if this is all you’ve got… then die!”
Before Li Suifeng himself had even arrived, a terrifying surge of force came tearing through the air.
“Kill!”
Hu Ming’s expression turned grim. He had meant to gravely wound Li Suifeng with a single stroke, before all these people, and so rebuild his renown in Nanzhou.
But now Li Suifeng had broken that strike so effortlessly.
Even if he brought Li Suifeng down now, the word that spread through the jianghu would be only that he, a late-sixth-rank, had challenged the Human Rankings newcomer Li Suifeng and barely scraped out a victory. That was not the result he wanted.
CLANG!
CLANG!
CLANG!
In the blink of an eye, Li Suifeng and Hu Ming had traded over a dozen blows—blade qi spraying in all directions, surges of force erupting.
BANG!
Countless bluestones cracked, fragments shooting out in every direction and leaving small craters in the walls.
Li Suifeng’s finger stabbed out, and Hu Ming’s heart clenched; he brought his long saber across his chest.
CLANG!
The finger struck against the long saber.
PFFT!
Hu Ming spat a mouthful of blood, skidding several paces down the long street before he steadied himself.
“How is this possible?”
His eyes went wide, his face filled with disbelief.
The internal cultivation Li Suifeng displayed was indeed only at the peak of the seventh-rank, yet his sheer physical strength was terrifyingly great—every clash sent the qi and blood in his body churning.
More frightening still, every one of Li Suifeng’s fingers struck at the weak points of his saber technique, as if Li Suifeng understood the saber better than he did himself.
“Brother Hu is actually getting the worse of it?”
Disbelief filled Xu Tianyi’s face. He himself was a late-seventh-rank and reckoned he couldn’t survive even one of Hu Ming’s strokes—yet now Li Suifeng, also a seventh-rank, was suppressing Hu Ming?
“So strong!”
“Lord Feng is mighty!”
“Kill this scum!”
Cheers rose among the Canal Gang disciples. Only moments ago this man had spouted his wild boasts about wiping out their Nanyang Branch—and now wasn’t he being beaten by Lord Feng like a drowned dog?
“It seems the old Human Rankings weren’t up to standard,” Li Suifeng remarked coolly, his hands never pausing.
His right hand formed a palm and struck toward Hu Ming.
Great Vajra Palm!
The very air around him was crushed and burst by the blow!
Fierce, unyielding force pressed toward Hu Ming.
“You—”
Hu Ming swept out his long saber, hacking out seven slashes in an instant.
BANG!
The blade qi was scattered by the palm, and slivers of force punched several large holes in the surrounding buildings.
PFFT!
Hu Ming spat another mouthful of blood; borrowing the force of the palm, he hurled himself violently backward, landing atop the boundary wall—then, without a backward glance, fled into the distance!
By now, terror had crept into his eyes. He had meant to defeat Li Suifeng at the height of his glory, and so secure his own renown.
But now… things were different! He had a premonition: if he fought on, he might well end up like Ba Hu.
“Don’t let them get away—I’m going after Hu Ming!”
Leaving these words behind, Li Suifeng leaped into the air and gave chase in the direction Hu Ming had fled.
“Brother Hu fled?”
“This…”
The Xu siblings were left in a hopeless bind, their faces full of disbelief.
Only moments before, Hu Ming had vowed up and down to defeat Li Suifeng at the height of his glory—and now, with so many bows and crossbows still trained on them, Hu Ming himself had been the first to run?
Now they dared not move. They were no Hu Ming—Xu Yiyi was only an eighth-rank, Xu Tianyi only a seventh-rank, and with two seventh-rank experts eyeing them like tigers nearby, along with all those crossbows… there was no way they could escape.
“Brother Wen… please, show us mercy!”
Seeing Wen Bubao approach, Xu Tianyi hastily cupped his hands toward him and held out a stack of silver notes: “We swear we’ll never set foot in Nanyang Prefecture again.”
SLAP!
Wen Bubao struck Xu Tianyi across the face, sneering coldly again and again:
“You think my life’s run on too long?”
“You meant to move against Lord Feng—and you think I’d dare take your silver?”
…
Through chase and flight, the two had left the city of Nanyang Prefecture and come into the hills not far off.
WHOOSH!
The sound of a hidden weapon tearing through the air came, forcing Hu Ming to turn back; his blade qi crisscrossed, shattering several hidden weapons that resembled shards of ice.
And in that brief moment, Li Suifeng had closed to within three zhang of Hu Ming.
“You’ve already offended the Valley of Ten Thousand Flowers—and now you mean to hunt me down to the last?” Hu Ming barked.
“You wanted to make your name off me—and now you think you can leave?” Li Suifeng said evenly.
Now, outside the city, Li Suifeng no longer concealed his true strength; his Frigid Ice True Qi spun to its utmost.
BANG!
The true qi tore through the air, blasting toward Hu Ming.
SHK!
He hacked his saber into the incoming true qi, and Hu Ming felt a wave of cold sweep over him—even the circulation of the true qi within his body slowed.
“You… you’re not seventh-rank?”
Hu Ming was seized with terror. He’d never imagined that back in Nanyang Prefecture, Li Suifeng had been hiding his strength all along!
“Earlier you cut at me many times—now I’ll return a single stroke of my own.”
From within Li Suifeng’s sleeve slid a curved blade—a curving, curving blade, like a slender crescent of moon.
The blade was small and delicate; Li Suifeng had had it specially forged at a blacksmith’s shop in imitation of the demon blade A Night of Spring Rain in the Small Tower, so that it could be easily hidden within his sleeve.
“Survive this one stroke, and what’s the harm in letting you go?”
As Li Suifeng’s voice fell—
SWISH!
A flash of blade light shone forth—
“You are—”
Hu Ming’s eyes brimmed with horror; he had time to spit out only those two words before a line of blood spread downward from between his brows, and his whole body split apart down the middle with a thunderous crack.
Li Suifeng looked at Hu Ming, now cleaved in two, and said evenly:
“I knew you couldn’t block it.”