Era of Mist

Acting this way would, of course, make them the laughingstock of the entire martial world. They’d never be able to show their faces again, but…

‘To hell with the martial world! I’m washing my hands of this business today! I’m going back home to be a bricklayer!’ one man declared, leading the way into the small stairwell. Where one went, others followed. After a moment’s hesitation, several other underlings went with him.

Ah Fei watched them, stunned. Suddenly, he gritted his teeth, snatched up a weapon, and turned to run back toward the restaurant’s front hall.

‘I, Lanzai Fei, may be illiterate, but I still know what loyalty and righteousness mean!’

The hair on Ah Fei’s whole body was standing on end. Bracing himself for death, he prepared to return to the battlefield—or at least to a corner of it, where he could take a few potshots from the shadows.

He was still scared, but he just couldn’t bring himself to abandon his Boss and run while the man held the rear. The shameless excuse of “going for reinforcements” disgusted him. If you walk the martial path, you’re bound to get cut. And since he was going to get cut anyway, why not let the blade carve loyalty upon his chest?

‘The Boss let me go first to find an escape route because he trusted me. If I just run off like this, wouldn’t that make me worse than an animal?’

‘At the very least, I should hold out until the Boss is actually dead before I run. That would preserve my honor!’

But hearing the CRACKLING and SNAPPING from up ahead, along with that terrifying, chuckling laughter, Ah Fei was still terrified. He was afraid he’d get himself killed before his Boss even went down.

He forced himself to rally, drew his gun, and crept forward, hunched over. The skewer joint wasn’t large to begin with. He’d only taken a few steps before he saw a tall figure and an even taller figure grappling with each other, wrestling their way toward him.

The tall figure was being forced back again and again by the even taller one, seemingly at a disadvantage.

‘Isn’t that the Boss!’

‘And what the hell is that giant monster fighting him?!’

Ah Fei was startled and was just about to take a potshot when he realized something might be wrong with this picture.

Although Shi Tiexin was retreating, his footwork was methodical, and he kept his center of gravity and form perfectly stable. The huge monster, on the other hand, was advancing with stumbling, unsteady steps, its body lurching from side to side.

As they reached a corner, Shi Tiexin pivoted lightly, then pushed and pulled with his arms. The cyan-black Ah Hui lost his balance, and his side slammed hard into the wall with a THUD. His momentum broken, he was momentarily stunned.

CRACK! Shi Tiexin seized the opening to deliver a low kick, making Ah Hui’s left knee pop loudly. It didn’t break, but his stance was now clearly even more unstable.

The cyan-black Ah Hui’s laughter suddenly cut off. Just as Ah Fei was about to rush forward, he saw the grappling Shi Tiexin clear his throat and then, mimicking Ah Hui’s tone, let out a loud, “Heh heh!”

To any listener, it would have sounded as if the strange, chuckling laughter had never stopped.

It seemed Ah Hui’s brain wasn’t working very well anymore, and he couldn’t speak. When he saw Shi Tiexin mocking him, he swung his arms furiously, trying to attack Shi Tiexin directly.

But he found that Shi Tiexin’s arms were like cast iron. Advancing had been easy before, but now when he tried to pull his arms free, he found they were caught as if in a vise, impossible to break away.

Shi Tiexin used the momentum to pull and shove. Ah Hui’s body was thrown half-airborne, smashing through a large section of fixtures with a series of CRACKS. The adjacent kitchen erupted in a CLANGOR as utensils flew everywhere.

A flying knife flashed past his eyes, but Shi Tiexin’s expression didn’t change. His hands remained locked with Ah Hui’s, not loosening in the slightest. At the same time, he lashed out with a vicious side whip kick. CRACK! It was the same left leg, the same left knee, now even more grotesquely twisted.

“Haha!” Shi Tiexin laughed at Ah Hui twice. Deciding it didn’t sound quite right, he adopted an even more unhinged tone and let out three long laughs. “Ha… ha… ha!”

Outside, Sanfan could no longer see what was happening inside the little shop. But all he could hear was a chaotic cacophony of CRACKS and CRASHES, as if the place were being demolished. Dust and debris flew out. Moreover, that “hahaha” laughter sounded so joyous, so unrestrained, that he felt completely reassured. ‘A premium product is a premium product, after all.’

‘Finally, a chance to clearly test the product’s performance!’

“Boss?”

Ah Fei stood there, dumbfounded, unable to make sense of the situation.

Shi Tiexin shot Ah Fei a quick glance without a word, then immediately turned his attention back to Ah Hui.

He bent his knees and drove a rising knee strike into Ah Hui’s lower abdomen. After transforming into a cyan-black monster, the defense of his thick, dark hide was incredible, as tough as the rubber used for tires. Hitting him was like beating a drum; an ordinary person would be no match at all. But under Shi Tiexin’s knee strike, Ah Hui couldn’t help but double over, and a hint of pain appeared on his perpetually grinning face.

A look at his abdomen revealed that the blow had ruptured his abdominal muscles.

The abdomen is the source of core strength. With his core muscles damaged, the power in his arms immediately slackened. Shi Tiexin kicked out again. With an explosive POP, Ah Hui’s left knee was completely destroyed. His towering, enormous body pitched forward uncontrollably, and he fell to one knee with a THUMP.

Ah Hui’s head, the only part of him that remained unchanged, was now perfectly positioned at the height of Shi Tiexin’s chest.

SWISH. The hands that had been clamped down so tightly suddenly released. Shi Tiexin spread his arms and flipped his wrists. Two lines of heat instantly shot from his false Dan to his wrists. Then, he delivered a vicious two-fisted strike to the sides of Ah Hui’s skull, accompanied by a dull whistling sound.

CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!

Amidst a continuous, sickening series of cracks, Ah Hui’s head instantly became covered in a web of fractures, like parched earth. Thick, blackish-red blood oozed from the cracks, while even more of it gushed from his seven orifices.

“Heh… heh…” With two final laughs, the massive monster Ah Hui’s body slumped and began to topple to the side.

Shi Tiexin reached out and caught Ah Hui’s body, preventing it from thudding to the ground. At the same time, he snatched up a meat cleaver that had fallen nearby and, without hesitation, brought it down in a vicious chop that whistled through the air before slamming into Ah Hui’s forehead.

All the while, he didn’t forget to keep up the strange laughter.

“Heheh!”

CRACK! The blade struck the skull, but the bone was too hard. It only cut two centimeters deep.

He raised the cleaver and chopped again!

“Heh heh!”

CRACK! The blade sank four fingers deep into the skull, leaving a huge gash. The massive, cyan-black body began to tremble. It seemed Ah Hui hadn’t actually been dead yet.

With a SQUELCH, he pulled the cleaver free, raised it, and chopped again!

“Hahahaha~~!”

CRACK! The heavy meat cleaver nearly split Ah Hui’s head in two. Blackish-red blood pooled on the floor, and only then did the cyan-black body finally stop moving.

Laughing while splitting a man’s head open—it was like a scene straight out of a horror movie. Watching from the side, Ah Fei’s face twitched uncontrollably.

Shi Tiexin let go of the handle, exhaled, and stood up straight. ‘You have to be thorough,’ he thought. ‘Who knows how tenacious these guys who can power up and transform are? Splitting the head open is standard procedure.’

‘Of course, if even *that* didn’t finish him off for good, then I’d just have to accept it.’

He shot a look at Ah Fei, still laughing loudly with a “Hahahaha!”, and then ran toward the back with him.