Era of Mist

Shi Tiexin’s expression didn’t change. He called out, “Sanfan, what do you want?”

“It’s just a game. A little amusement. Win and you live, lose and you die. Don’t break the rules, Black Venerable.” Several men aimed machine guns—heavy firepower—in their direction. Sanfan kept trying to flick his lighter open, CLICK, CLICK, without looking up. “As a pawn, you should stick to the rules of the game.”

Ah Fei had taken the boss and the others to the back. Shi Tiexin stood alone as a one-man fortress and roared, “You betrayed Daxing?”

Hearing this, Sanfan just gave a stiff smile. Then, with a wave of his hand, the expressions of the twenty muscular brutes instantly switched from deathly stillness to raw fury. It was as if their combat protocols had been swapped out. Their eyes turned crimson in an instant, veins popping on their foreheads. No longer advancing at a measured, side-by-side pace, they let out a collective roar and charged toward the small shop.

Each of these men was built like an American football player, like a pack of rampaging beasts—a terrifying volley of human cannonballs.

But with psionic energy swirling in his mind, Shi Tiexin felt no fear.

He noticed that their movements seemed to follow a uniform pattern.

They were direct and inflexible. And… ‘Their fighting style is absolute garbage!’

They were like automatons with a few fighting skills programmed into their brains. They looked imposing, but once you saw through their patterns, they really weren’t that difficult to handle.

His [Fist Principles] attribute seemed to be at work, making everything a little clearer.

He took half a step back and feinted with his right fist. Just as he expected, it drew the first man’s attention, causing his trajectory to shift slightly. He then feigned a strike with his left fist, and the man immediately tried to counter, but his stiff limbs only made him lose his balance even more.

To lose your center of gravity is to lose your stance, and the consequence of losing your stance is—

BAM!

With a tremendous crack, the man at the very front was struck in the face by a heavy, whistling fist—a textbook move from the Basic Fist Arts. The [Ruthless] attribute of the technique activated, and the man’s face instantly caved in.

He had no time to block or dodge. The unstoppable punch smashed his face to a pulp. And now that Shi Tiexin was in the Primordial Pill Realm, his striking power was even greater than before! With a sharp CRACK, the man’s neck snapped completely, his massive head flopping down to touch his own back. Shi Tiexin’s fist, the size of a clay pot, burst out through a spray of blood and gore, continuing with unabated momentum toward the second man.

The punch had lost most of its force, but with a quick jab of two fingers, he effortlessly gouged out both of the man’s eyes.

The man was instantly blinded. His forward path shifted slightly, and he blundered right past, not even grazing a hair on Shi Tiexin’s body.

Shi Tiexin slammed his body into the first corpse, sending it cannoning into the charging mob to break their momentum. He immediately followed up with a sweeping kick that sent a third man to the ground. Though the man’s abdominal muscles were shredded by the powerful blow, he still struggled to rise.

Shi Tiexin’s gaze was profound, his mind a steel trap of calm.

‘Their physical conditioning is about a 0.85. They’d completely steamroll an ordinary person.’

‘Their defense is abnormally high.’

‘They have a high pain tolerance; it doesn’t affect their movements.’

He followed up with a heavy stomp on the man’s chest. CRACK-CRACK! The sternum shattered into pieces. Shi Tiexin brought his foot down again, crushing the man’s heart. Only then did the man’s eyes bulge as he coughed up blood and went limp.

‘Relatively high vitality.’

With a hook of his foot, he kicked the corpse out like a roadblock, tripping up the men behind him. Two of the charging brutes went tumbling to the ground.

‘Poor agility and balance.’

His left arm shot out, locking around one man’s neck. He used his right palm to brace and push the man’s head as his left arm cinched tight. With a sickening CRACK, the man’s head twisted more than two hundred degrees around.

At the same time, his right leg flew up in a lightning-fast jumping kick that landed squarely on another man’s chest.

THUD! The man shot backward like a cannonball, crashing into the crowd blocking the doorway and sending them flying like bowling pins.

‘Fatal weak points are still effective.’

CRASH! CRASH! The shop’s display windows shattered as a dozen more brutes threw themselves through the glass and into the store. The small shop was instantly thrown into chaos. They overturned tables and chairs, smashed furniture, and, combined with the group at the door, converged on Shi Tiexin from three directions.

‘I can’t let them surround me!’

Enemies swarmed him from all sides like a surging tide. The psionic energy in Shi Tiexin’s mind began to boil, and a faint light emanated from his eyes.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. A rhythmic sound seemed to pulse from his boiling psionic energy. Direction, angle, number, trajectory—all were rapidly filtered through his now-overclocked mind.

In the instant before the human tide crashed in on him, Shi Tiexin suddenly launched himself into the air.

He leaped, tucking his body into a tight ball, shooting into the air like a compressed spring.

The slow-witted enemies reflexively looked up, unable to adapt.

The next instant, the compressed ball exploded outward like a bomb. Two fists and two feet lashed out with heavy strikes in four directions at once!

THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD! In a rapid series of sickening impacts, bodies flew backward like water from an explosion. Blood flowed freely and bits of flesh went flying as Shi Tiexin landed in a crouch with a soft THUMP.

A thick arm suddenly locked around his neck from behind. Shi Tiexin grabbed it with both hands and twisted. CRACK! The arm was instantly contorted like a pretzel. He heaved with his shoulder and swung his arms, and with a great WHOOSH, he slung the attacker around from his back and into the space in front of him.

In front of him, the enemies who had been struggling to their feet charged forward once more.

Shi Tiexin let out a low roar as his legs erupted with tremendous power. He surged forward in a flying ram, slamming headfirst into the back of the enemy he had just swung down from mid-air. CRACKLE! The man’s spine, shoulder blades, and the other bones in his back instantly shattered into dozens of fragments. With its chest bulging grotesquely, the corpse flew like a massive sandbag and crashed into the enemies at the front door, sending them all flying.

Shi Tiexin glanced behind him. Ah Fei and the others had been gone for a little while now, but there was still no sound from them.

He looked ahead again. Despite the chaotic battle, his mind was clear. ‘Sanfan still has over thirty goons, and they have guns. I doubt he’s going to play fair.’

Sure enough, Sanfan irritably flicked his lighter again.

“All that hype, and they turned out to be completely useless.” Sanfan still didn’t look up. He jerked his chin at Ah Hui, his tone utterly devoid of respect. “Hey. You’re up.”

“Heh heh… heh heh… Hahahaha~” Ah Hui let out a strange laugh and began to walk forward.

WHOOSH! A heavy corpse came flying out of the shop, hurtling straight toward the advancing Ah Hui. Compared to the hulking body of the dead goon, the short, stout Ah Hui looked as unassuming as a sack of potatoes. It looked as though the flying corpse would smash him to a pulp in an instant.

But Ah Hui just kept that same strange smile on his face and reached out his right hand toward the corpse.

The next moment, with a loud THUD, the corpse stopped dead in its tracks.

CRACKLE… CRACKLE… Amidst a series of crisp, strange sounds, a massive, grayish-blue hand emerged from behind the corpse. Its fingers were as thick as carrots, and the hand itself was enormous and bulky. The fingers tightened, gripping the corpse firmly. Then, with a sudden swing, it WHOOSHED, flinging the body right back into the shop.