Chapter 101: Battle Against a Fourth-Rank Expert
Boom!
The air detonated with a thunderclap.
A translucent black-silver fist seal, carrying the force of one hundred fifty thousand catties, collided head-on with Shi Zhibang's claw seal that split the air like a raptor's talons.
Bang!
The two powers slammed together with a muffled blast that echoed through the corridor.
Shi Zhibang, consumed by killing intent, felt his right hand go numb at first, all sensation draining away. Then agony surged from his arm into his brain, making his face twitch and his body shudder.
At the same time, the sound of bones cracking came clearly to his ears.
Step, step, step!
His entire body recoiling backward uncontrollably, Shi Zhibang finally saw a cloud of blood mist enveloping his upper body.
The blood mist came from his right arm.
By then, the arm had been completely shattered, every bone broken, every fragment split apart. The whole limb hung at his shoulder like a lump of newly kneaded dough, soft and limp.
"You..."
Swish!
Blade light burst forth from nowhere.
Su Jingxing drew out his treasured blade in a flash and, facing the terrified Shi Zhibang, unleashed a violent barrage of slashes.
Forty years of true qi cultivation!
The Human-Origin moves of the Three-Origin Blade Technique--
"Reverse Wind Slash!"
"River-Sweeping Thousand-Troop Slash!"
"Roaring Dragon Tyrant Slash!"
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Blade light and blade wind tore through the air.
The same black-silver blade qi, one wave after another, layering over one another without pause, hammered relentlessly into Shi Zhibang's body.
First it shattered his protective true qi, then it tore open the special protective garments he wore, the practice clothes of semi-treasure-grade quality.
At last, it split Shi Zhibang's head and upper body cleanly in two, sending blood spraying across the floor.
Fast. Fierce. Ruthless.
Shi Zhibang, a fifth-rank expert, never even had time to use his hidden trump card before he went to see his ancestors.
Silence fell in the corridor.
Su Jingxing sheathed his blade, picked up a card, and stood still for a moment, listening carefully to the surroundings. Confirming that no one else was coming his way, he relaxed slightly.
"Looks like I went a bit too far."
Lowering his gaze to the two halves of Shi Zhibang's body, Su Jingxing murmured softly.
His organs lay scattered on the ground, and blood had sprayed everywhere.
Cleaning that up would waste too much time.
After a moment's thought, Su Jingxing simply gave up on tidying the scene and headed for his next target's room.
As long as he moved fast enough, there was no need to fear the body being discovered.
So...
Swish!
Blade light flashed by, and yet another senior member of the Shi family lost his head before he even had time to react.
Su Jingxing picked up the card, turned, and moved on to the next.
The location was already clear in his mind, and he did not waste even a second on the way.
His next target was a death warrior raised from childhood, just like Nie Renchou.
Maintaining the hundred-meter listening range of his ear-reaching perception, Su Jingxing pinpointed the moment this death warrior heard a knock at the door. The man came out warily, and Su Jingxing concealed himself above the ceiling.
As the death warrior poked his head out of the room and looked left and right without seeing anyone, the instant his vigilance flickered--
Swish!
Blade light appeared without warning.
Holding his treasured blade, Su Jingxing dropped from above the death warrior's head. One slash skimmed across the man's face, slicing away half of it.
That was the result of the death warrior's attempt to evade after realizing the danger; he had not completely avoided the strike, only half.
Before he could even cry out, Su Jingxing, still airborne, tilted the blade in his hand and cut toward the neck at lightning speed.
Pfft!
A spray of fresh blood burst out, splattering the doorway and the walls on both sides.
The head, missing half its face, separated from the body and struck the floor with two dull thuds.
After collecting another card, Su Jingxing did not slow down. He charged toward another room ten meters away.
The room nearby was also occupied by a Shi family death warrior, a sixth-rank expert.
His alertness was extremely high.
Just as Su Jingxing finished off his target, he rushed out of the room again, swift and wary.
The moment the door opened--
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Su Jingxing, already speeding past, delivered three quick slashes in succession. The other man had time only to let out one furious roar before his body was split cleanly in two.
But that roar also alerted the occupants of every room in the corridor.
In an instant, Su Jingxing's hearing caught a flurry of chaotic footsteps.
Along with shouting and yelling, one guard and death warrior after another rushed out from their rooms.
What awaited them...
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
The sound of tearing wind rang out.
Su Jingxing released three treasured throwing knives, wrapped in true qi as they shot through the air at extreme speed.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
One guard after another had their heads pierced and exploded on the spot.
Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!
One death warrior after another had their hearts or throats pierced or sliced through by the flying knives.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Blood flowers bloomed, and bodies trembled.
Controlling the three treasured flying knives from a distance, Su Jingxing sent them racing through the crowd at tremendous speed.
Accompanied by wave after wave of screams, blood splashed everywhere.
These low-rank guards and death warriors could not escape the knives' piercing flight, not one of them.
By the time the last death warrior fell, the corridor had become a river of blood.
Su Jingxing withdrew the flying knives and, panting lightly, walked among the corpses as he picked up card after card.
Once every corpse had been looted, he stopped panting as well. Standing amid the pile of bodies, he looked across the distance at an old man with fiery red hair who had suddenly appeared several dozen meters away.
Clap, clap, clap.
The old man applauded, sizing Su Jingxing up and down with great interest, then smiled and said, "Good. Good. Very good! Your throwing knife skill is truly formidable. If I am not mistaken, it should be from the Heavy Blade line, yes?"
As the name suggested, heavy blades were saber arts and blade techniques that ruled through weight and force.
The traits of the Titan Blade could indeed be categorized under the Heavy Blade line.
And Su Jingxing also recognized the old man's identity.
Tang Wulin!
A retainer of the Shi family, the strongest presence in this secret base, a fourth-rank expert!
Su Jingxing had previously been killing the others in secret precisely so he could leave Tang Wulin for last.
Although there were still quite a few people he had not dealt with, there were not many left.
Finish Tang Wulin first, and the rest would be easy!
Facing a fourth-rank opponent, Su Jingxing focused all his mind and summoned every strand of the Heaven-Stepping true qi in his dantian.
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
The three treasured flying knives shot out through the air once more.
"Haha, so you don't want to chat with this old man a little?"
Seeing this, Tang Wulin laughed loudly.
Within his laughter, two hiltless crescent sabers flew up from behind his head to meet the flying knives.
Clang, clang, clang!
The two hiltless crescent sabers and the three treasured flying knives clashed fiercely in the corridor.
The sparks they sent flying were dazzling and brilliant.
The blade qi released by both sides cut into the floor and walls, leaving inch-deep wounds.
The corpses on the ground were torn into even smaller pieces, blood splattering everywhere.
The two men exchanged distant attacks through hidden weapons.
Tang Wulin stood smiling without moving, and Su Jingxing was more than happy to do the same.
While controlling the flying knives, he also took out two stored true-qi cards, one for seven years of cultivation and the other for eight, and pressed them against his palm to unlock them, replenishing the dantian's depleted reserves.
Swish, swish, swish.
At the same time, he split his focus to circulate the Nine-Step Heaven-Stepping technique, converting the excess attribute-free true qi into Heaven-Stepping true qi.
In less than half a minute, Su Jingxing had successfully recovered to peak condition.