Chapter 70: Chapter 70
“What!?”
“He’s Qu Bushi! The Tenth Chief of Chenjian Wu?!”
“Impossible! What is he doing here!?”
Cries of alarm erupted one after another. Every face was etched with dread.
Chenjian Wu’s reputation was simply too fearsome.
For the Ji clan, especially so.
The memory of Ji Guannan’s death still hung raw and vivid — a wound that had never fully healed.
The moment Qu Bushi’s name rang out, both Ji sisters began to tremble uncontrollably.
Qu Bushi, however, paid the quaking passengers no attention whatsoever.
He stared at Shen Xiuhan with open surprise, a faint smile of interest tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Kid. I’m curious — how did you see through me down there?”
Shen Xiuhan met his crushing gaze without flinching.
“Go ask those three pieces of trash in hell. They told me.”
Qu Bushi’s smile froze.
“You… killed them?”
“What do you think?”
Qu Bushi’s expression darkened. Killing intent bled from his eyes, cold enough to crystallize the air.
“You’re asking for death!”
The flagstone beneath his feet exploded into shrapnel.
His body hurtled forward like a caged bear unleashed, wrapped in a tidal wave of qi-blood, and bore down on Shen Xiuhan.
He opened with a Full Mastery-grade transcendent art.
Star-Seizing Hand!
Martial arts were divided into four grades: Lower, Middle, Upper, and Transcendent.
Lower-grade arts could carry a practitioner to Manifest Strength. Middle-grade to Hidden Strength. Upper-grade to Transforming Strength.
And Transcendent arts — those were techniques capable of reaching Astral Strength.
This Star-Seizing Hand was derived from the signature divine art of Zhaixing Sect — one of the four great powers of the prefectural city — the Star-Plucking, Moon-Seizing Myriad Arts Compendium.
Duan Xiao had obtained it through a stroke of fortune and passed it on to Qu Bushi.
The technique’s moves were treacherous and vicious, targeting joints, fatal pressure points, and skeletal weak spots.
Its attack patterns were labyrinthine and unpredictable — like a maggot burrowing into bone. Once it latched on and tangled a victim, the best outcome was shattered tendons and broken bones; the worst, every limb rendered useless.
Qu Bushi closed in like a phantom.
Qi-blood coiled around him.
Five fingers splayed into a claw, screeching through the air, and drove for Shen Xiuhan’s throat.
“Bring it on!”
Shen Xiuhan’s eyes blazed with piercing light.
This art shared the same cunning philosophy as Heavenly Dark Eagle Force — and the recognition set his blood singing with battle-lust. Startled Swan, Roaming Dragon surged to life beneath him.
WHOOSH!
Shen Xiuhan’s spine coiled and released like a great dragon, bowing and snapping. His body slid sideways at an impossible angle, dodging the claw by a razor’s width.
The wind of the strike grazed past his ear, sending his hair whipping wild.
“Footwork!”
Qu Bushi let out a startled bark, surprise flashing across his face — then avid interest.
“Nice, kid! Hand over the footwork manual and I’ll let you live!”
Shen Xiuhan answered with a cold snort. Instead of retreating, he surged forward, foot slamming into the ground.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
Qi-blood flooded into his legs.
Each step shattered the flagstones beneath him, punching clear footprints into the rock.
Then — a dead stop. Waist pivoting, hips driving. His right leg lanced out like a javelin.
The wind off the kick was a shriek, tearing a visible shockwave through the air.
Thirty-Six Paths of Sky-Collapsing Legs — Piercing-Spear Leg!
Qu Bushi didn’t flinch.
His claw-shadows flowed in an endless cascade. A subtle shift of his body let the kick sail past, and instantly his talons plunged downward, driving for Shen Xiuhan’s kneecap.
If that strike connected, even someone at Full Mastery of Bone Tempering would lose the leg.
Shen Xiuhan neither dodged nor retreated.
He bent his leg at the arch, offering his inner knee to meet the killing claw head-on.
At the same time, his right hand curled into talons and whipped back in a vicious swipe.
Heavenly Dark Eagle Force — Dark Eagle Bone Shatter!
“Trading wound for wound? You’re begging to die!”
Qu Bushi laughed instead of raged.
Qi-blood boiled through his left hand like scalding water, five fingers driving down like iron nails.
BANG!
A muffled impact — as though striking a slab of iron.
The shock jolted through Qu Bushi’s fingers, leaving them numb and tingling, his thumb-web aching.
“No—!”
Qu Bushi’s face twisted. A chill raced up his spine.
But before he could react, razor-edged talons were already hurtling toward his face.
Qu Bushi gritted his teeth and flung his head back with everything he had.
A fraction too slow.
SWISH!
Shen Xiuhan’s eagle-claw fingers raked across Qu Bushi’s face.
SHRRRRIP…
Five deep furrows carved through the skin, flesh peeling back in ribbons. Half the skin of his left cheek was torn clean away, exposing the raw, glistening muscle beneath.
Blood welled instantly, painting half his face crimson.
Qu Bushi staggered back several steps. He raised a hand and touched the wound — fingertips met flayed meat — and the searing pain drew a faint twitch at the corner of his mouth.
His gaze turned cold as black ice, locked on Shen Xiuhan. His voice came low and hoarse.
“Is that… a body-hardening art?”
Without waiting for an answer, his lips pulled back into a savage rictus, and he spoke slowly, deliberately.
“Good… good… good. Worthy of that mad bitch the Face-Ripper’s disciple. That claw of yours — you learned it well.”
Shen Xiuhan flicked his fingers.
Scraps of torn flesh, clotted blood, and flecks of skin caught between his fingers scattered into a fine red mist on the wind, dissolved by the pulse of his qi.
His expression remained as flat and indifferent as ever, though a flicker of something odd passed through his mind.
‘The Face-Ripper…’
‘Is that Master’s nickname?’
‘Hmm. Not a pleasant ring to it.’
“Kid, you’ve got real skill! Looks like Erniang, Third Brother, and Fourth Brother didn’t die for nothing — they earned what they got!”
Qu Bushi steadied himself. The killing intent in his eyes thickened like ink, almost tangible.
Then he produced a small, fingernail-sized bead of crystalline jade and closed his fist around it.
The pearl shimmered with a watery luster. Deep within, light rippled and flowed as though it held a miniature lake.
“Too bad — today, I’m going to flay you alive and rip out every last sinew!”
The instant the jade bead touched his palm, Qu Bushi’s entire aura shifted.
All around the wharf, the ambient moisture in the air seemed to answer some unseen call, rushing madly toward his palm. Out on the water, concentric rings of ripples spread across the surface.
Then Qu Bushi’s palms began to fly — and within each strike echoed the roar of crashing waves.
This was not his primary art.
It was a palm technique he had specifically re-mastered after obtaining this water-attuned treasure.
As long as he held that strange jade bead, any technique aligned with the element of water would see its power amplified beyond all proportion.
Azure Billow Palm!
“DIE!!!”
Qu Bushi’s fury erupted. His long hair whipped wildly in the blast of force. A single devastating palm strike lashed out.
BOOM!
In an instant, layer upon layer of palm-shadows — deep, luminous blue — sealed off every avenue of retreat and crashed toward Shen Xiuhan like a towering tsunami.
The cascade of palm-shadows merged and condensed in midair, coalescing into a single enormous palm-print of blazing azure, nearly solid and several zhang across. It descended from above, blotting out the sky as it slammed toward Shen Xiuhan.
‘What terrifying power!’
‘No Manifest Strength martial artist should be capable of this!’
Shen Xiuhan stared up at that colossal palm-print, and for the first time, a flicker of genuine alarm surfaced in his eyes.
In the breath between life and death, he drove his qi-blood to its absolute limit. Startled Swan, Roaming Dragon dissolved his form into a blurred afterimage that slipped along the falling palm-print’s outer edge — and by the thinnest of margins, he slid free.
BOOM!!!
The giant palm-print smashed down.
The stone wharf shattered to powder. A storm of rubble and dust erupted skyward, blasting out a crater several zhang wide. Fracture lines spread outward like a spider’s web.
Before Shen Xiuhan could catch his breath, Qu Bushi’s savage laughter rang out again.
A second palm-print was already taking shape — and it plummeted toward him.
“Force Projection! That’s Force Projection!”
Beside the carriage, staring up at the titanic azure palm descending like divine wrath, Ji Xue seemed to remember something. A cry of alarm burst from her lips.