Chapter 68: Chapter 68
Ma Jinghang’s words died in his throat. The arrogance on his face froze solid, then flushed crimson.
At the front of the carriage, Geng Weizhi studied the uninvited guests with wary eyes.
The moment he made out the wiry man’s face, his pupils contracted sharply and a cry of alarm tore from his lips.
“The Eel — Wang Neng?!”
“Patrol Envoy, be careful!”
“This man is one of the Tenth Chief Qu Bushi’s three top fighters under Chenjian Wu! Twisted and sadistic — he loves torturing people to death! His raids never leave a single survivor!”
Even as he spoke, his gaze swept frantically over the others. The more he saw, the deeper his dread.
“That big one is Mountain Pillar — Zhu Jing! And that woman… I’ve never seen her face, but if she’s running with Wang Neng and Zhu Jing, she can only be that poisonous bitch Sun Erniang!”
SWISH!
At those words, the air seemed to freeze solid.
Chenjian Wu!
The Tenth Chief’s three top fighters!
The names hung over the party like a thunderhead, pressing down on every heart.
Inside the carriage, the Wen youth’s face went ashen. His legs had already begun to tremble.
Ji Xue and Ji Yao blanched in unison, the color draining from their faces until they were white as paper.
Young Master Ma looked ready to lose control of his bladder. His eyes darted wildly in every direction, already scouting escape routes.
“Well, well. Someone who actually knows my name.”
Wang Neng’s smirk faded. His venomous gaze locked onto Geng Weizhi.
“You’ve gone and spoiled my fun. So I’ll take your dog-life first as an offering to the heavens!”
SWISH!
Before the words had finished leaving his mouth, Wang Neng exploded forward. His gaunt frame blurred into an afterimage as he closed the distance in a heartbeat. His hand flipped overhead and came crashing down with the force of a landslide.
Wind-Splitting Palm!
Wang Neng had spent the better part of a decade honing this palm art to perfection. Driven by Full Mastery of Blood Tempering, the single strike split the air with a piercing crack of compressed force.
Palm wind cut like a blade. Cold rolled off it in waves.
Geng Weizhi’s face twisted with alarm. He raised his saber to block on pure instinct.
“Pathetic!”
Wang Neng’s lips peeled back in a savage grin.
In his mind’s eye, he could already see the man’s skull shattering, brains and blood spraying in a gory fountain.
In the space between lightning and thunder —
A hand like an eagle’s talon clamped down on Wang Neng’s wrist with surgical precision!
Heavenly Dark Eagle Force — Cloud Grasp Sky Sever!
SNAP!
Qi-blood collided with a muffled detonation.
Wang Neng felt his wrist lock up as though clamped in an iron vice. A tyrannical force bored straight through the bone, followed instantly by a searing, marrow-deep agony.
‘No good! This one fights back!’
Alarm ripped through Wang Neng’s mind. Without a heartbeat’s hesitation, he moved to shift his stance and wrench himself free.
But that iron hand simply twisted upward — and wrenched.
CRACK!
The sound of snapping bone was like a dead branch breaking.
Wang Neng’s eyes bulged to the size of copper bells. His features contorted beyond recognition as an inhuman shriek tore from his throat — the squeal of a pig under the knife.
“AAAAAGH — THE PAIN!”
Shen Xiuhan’s gaze was cold as a blade’s edge.
His upper body coiled, waist and hips driving the force. His right leg shot out like a lance that could pierce heaven and earth — a tyrant’s spear, thundering forward.
Thirty-Six Paths of Sky-Collapsing Legs — Piercing-Spear Leg!
BANG!!
In the next instant, Wang Neng’s body flew off the ground like a sandbag torn from its rope, hurtling seven or eight paces through the air before slamming into the mud. Dirt and dust exploded upward.
“Cough… hack hack…”
Through the haze of settling dust, only Wang Neng’s agonized retching echoed among the trees.
Dead silence fell in every direction.
Sun Erniang, Zhu Jing, the seven or eight bandits — even Young Master Ma and the Wen youth, and the Ji sisters inside the carriage —
All stared at Shen Xiuhan’s figure, standing tall as a pine before the carriage, and were struck utterly dumb with shock.
“Care— careful… He’s not — cough cough — not a fresh Blood Tempering novice like the intel said… Brothers, rush him together!”
Wang Neng strained to scream.
A Manifest Strength martial artist’s qi-blood blazed like a furnace; his body far surpassed that of any ordinary man.
An average person who took that kick would have had every organ ruptured — dead on the spot.
Wang Neng had only coughed up two mouthfuls of blood and was already struggling to rise.
But Shen Xiuhan was not about to give him a moment’s respite.
Strike while he’s wounded. Finish what you started.
“Sun Erniang! Hurry — go tell the Tenth Chief, beg him to send reinforc—”
Wang Neng tried to call for help, but his screaming cut off abruptly.
In the edge of his vision, Sun Erniang’s face had gone white as a ghost in broad daylight. She let out a piercing shriek:
“Look out!”
Look out?
In the next heartbeat, the shrill scream of wind-split air detonated beside Wang Neng’s ear.
His scalp prickled. Instinct screamed at him to turn and block.
Too late.
A leg carrying the force to collapse a mountain swung upward from below and caught him square under the chin.
Thirty-Six Paths of Sky-Collapsing Legs — Mountain-Collapsing Kick!
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
Wang Neng’s half-kneeling body was launched clean off the ground. A full mouthful of yellow teeth exploded outward in a spray of blood, scattering like blossoms flung by a celestial maiden.
The force drove through his jaw, snapping his head backward at a grotesque, inhuman angle.
Skin, cartilage, windpipe, blood vessels — all wrenched and torn apart.
THUD!
Wang Neng crashed down at Sun Erniang’s feet.
Her lips quivered.
“Th-Third Brother…”
But Wang Neng could no longer answer.
His neck was split open, blood gushing like a spring. Only a thin strip of skin at the nape still connected his head to his body. He was utterly and irreversibly dead.
Sun Erniang’s face drained to the color of ash. Without a word, she spun and bolted.
“Running?”
Shen Xiuhan let out a cold laugh.
Startled Swan, Roaming Dragon unfurled beneath him, and he shot through the trees like a wraith.
Dead leaves swirled in the wake of his qi. The distance between them shrank at terrifying speed.
Seconds later, Shen Xiuhan launched himself skyward — a hawk stooping on a rabbit — and plunged down from above in a savage dive.
Five fingers curled into talons. His hand tore through the frigid air, driving straight for the crown of Sun Erniang’s skull.
“Can’t outrun him — then fight!”
Sun Erniang felt the gale at her back. A vicious light flared in her eyes. She bit down hard, whipped around, and flung both arms upward.
FWIP! FWIP!
Twin flashes of cold steel shot from her sleeves — two slender spikes darting like vipers at Shen Xiuhan’s face.
“Parlor tricks.”
Shen Xiuhan was still in midair, but his composure never wavered. His legs whipped out like twin steel lashes, scissoring through the empty space before him.
Thirty-Six Paths of Sky-Collapsing Legs — Scissor Kick!
CLANG! CLANG!
The two spikes spun away — one left, one right — and embedded themselves deep in the trunks of flanking trees, their tails still quivering and humming.
“Die!”
Her weapons knocked aside, Sun Erniang let out a shrill, desperate scream and drove a fist straight at Shen Xiuhan’s chest.
Shen Xiuhan’s cold gaze flicked like lightning. A slight twist of his torso, and the fist grazed past his lapel and met only air.
Then his hand shot forward like a viper from its hole — one long, effortless thrust — and clamped around Sun Erniang’s throat.
The savagery on her face collapsed in an instant, replaced by boundless terror.
“Mercy, great hero! I am Qu Bushi of Chenjian Wu’s wom—”
CRACK!
The stomach-turning sound of breaking bone cut her plea mercilessly short.
Shen Xiuhan’s fingers closed like iron.
Sun Erniang’s eyes bulged from their sockets. Bright crimson blood traced a slow path from the corner of her mouth.
Her hands clawed frantically at the forearm locked around her neck, desperate to pry loose the killing grip.
It was futile.
Under the aegis of Perfection-grade Iron Bone Art, Shen Xiuhan’s arm bore nothing worse than a few red scratches.
Two or three breaths later, Sun Erniang’s flailing arms went limp. Her voluptuous body sagged to the ground, limp as a heap of mud, the last spark of life snuffed out.
Shen Xiuhan dropped the corpse and wheeled around.
The area around the carriage had erupted into a roar of violence.