Chapter Eighty-Seven: Killing Until They Tremble with Fear

Though she still harbored a faint thread of doubt, Ling Xiaohan chose to believe Song Yue. After all, the sudden weakness he had shown a moment ago did not seem fake.

Giving a comrade enough trust was one of the essential rules of survival on the battlefield.

Song Yue faced Ou Qiang with calm composure.

Then he drew a deep breath, secretly activated a special body technique from the body-refining art, and once again caused the flow of his blood and energy to stir ever so slightly.

This time, Ou Qiang, watching him from the opposite side, sensed it much more clearly.

At once, he felt reassured.

A reckless fool. At a time like this, he still dared to force himself onward. He really did have some courage.

But since he had run into me, he could only blame his own bad luck.

Ou Qiang casually planted the long blade in his hand into the ground, then deliberately raised both hands in provocation. "See that? I am going to smash you to pieces with these hands right now!"

Song Yue smiled and did the same, driving the alloy spear in his hand into the ground. He shrugged. "What a coincidence. I was thinking the same thing."

He had taken the bait.

Ou Qiang suppressed the excitement surging in his heart.

Young people really were still too green.

They could not stand provocation.

With only a little goading, Song Yue had actually abandoned the weapon he was best with.

Song Yue thought inwardly with a laugh: I know all kinds of weapons, but the strongest of them all are these two hands that have been single for eighteen years.

The people around them slowly backed away. The air still reeked strongly of blood.

The corpses of those who had just died still lay on the ground, unattended for the time being.

Everyone watched the two men in the center with taut nerves.

Seizing the moment, Ling Xiaohan used spiritual transmission to relay Song Yue’s earlier words to Qin Qi, Bai Qi, and Lei Ming.

The underground palace, which forbade all arts and techniques, truly seemed like a treasury and trial ground made especially for warriors.

Qin Qi, Bai Qi, and Lei Ming gave silent acknowledgment.

With a low roar, Ou Qiang’s blood energy suddenly erupted from within him.

The crowd was instantly shocked.

To their horror, they realized that the blood energy bursting from Ou Qiang had already surpassed what a normal newcomer to the grandmaster realm could produce.

Anyone present who had reached the grandmaster level could roughly judge Ou Qiang’s current state.

He was already in the middle stage of the grandmaster realm!

This was a forbidden art!

Until now, almost no one had imagined that Ou Qiang also possessed a secret technique for burning blood and energy in an instant.

He had hidden it far too deeply.

But what a fine thing that was.

Song Yue was finished now.

The people on the Ou family side could barely contain their excitement; some nearly applauded on the spot.

The faces of Lin Wenbo and the other Lin family juniors instantly turned grave. They exchanged looks and understood one another’s intent.

The moment Song Yue fell into danger, they would move at once, seize him, and then... run.

No matter what, they could not let Song Yue die here.

Ling Xiaohan and the others were also surprised, and in an instant they had already prepared to strike.

Song Yue was a warrior, and would soon become their comrade. They could not let him be lost here.

Boom!

Ou Qiang’s field expanded several times over, bringing with it an unbearably terrifying pressure.

His eyes blazed with dreadful light as he threw a punch at Song Yue.

The force of the blow howled through the air, and at the instant it was launched, even the void seemed to twist under the immense power.

Song Yue split with his left hand and thundered with his right.

The moment Ou Qiang burned his blood and erupted with even greater combat power, Song Yue activated the Taiyi Body-Tempering Scripture, using a physical technique from the body-refining art to awaken his hidden potential. At the same time, he poured the thunder energy that had long lain unused within him into both arms.

One fist, one palm.

A horrifying, unmatched force exploded outward.

The crowd saw only a brilliant flash of starlight, and before they could react, a sudden flare of lightning nearly blinded them.

Almost no one could clearly see what happened next. Ou Qiang let out a scream that exceeded the limits of human endurance.

The fist he had hurled at Song Yue... shattered completely.

His other arm was cleanly severed at the shoulder by Song Yue’s Star-Splitting Hand, and blood sprayed into the air.

Too miserable.

Ou Qiang’s scheming was already deep enough, and even though he was certain Song Yue had truly grown weak, his own strength alone would have been enough to kill him without any preparation at all.

And yet he still had not hesitated to use the deeply hidden forbidden art.

In an instant, his full strength had been raised to the middle stage of the grandmaster realm. It was the first time he had ever used it, and at the moment his power surged, his confidence swelled nearly to the point of arrogance.

That feeling of grasping power far beyond one’s own strength... truly was wonderful.

He had never imagined that in the blink of an eye, he would be given such a vivid lesson by an opponent hiding even deeper than himself.

And the lesson fee was steep. Not money. Life itself.

The searing pain was so extreme that Ou Qiang could not think about anything at all in that instant. Instinctively, he tried to flee.

But then he saw a fist coming straight at his face.

Bang!

Ou Qiang’s time came to a complete halt at that moment.

On the other side, the instant Song Yue crippled Ou Qiang, Ling Xiaohan, Bai Qi, Qin Qi, and Lei Ming erupted into action.

At the same time, they attacked one of the grandmasters from the Ou family camp.

One, indeed.

All four had the same target.

It was the same young grandmaster who had once crossed paths with Ling Xiaohan and the others, the one who had just tried to jump in and seize the spoils.

That young grandmaster had been entirely captivated by the astonishing scene on the battlefield. He never imagined that anyone would launch a surprise attack at a time like this, let alone four of them at once.

Too despicable.

Instinct as a warrior drove the young grandmaster to react at once. He turned and ran.

But it was already too late.

Ling Xiaohan and the others had fought side by side on the battlefield more than once, and their coordination was extremely sharp. Under such circumstances, if they still let him escape, they might as well disband on the spot and never return to the Nine Pass battlefield.

Bai Qi’s halberd cut a sharp arc through the air, slashing across the path the young grandmaster was using to flee and forcing him to stop.

Lei Ming smashed down from the side with a brutal punch.

Qin Qi and Ling Xiaohan sealed off his escape routes from both flanks.

The young grandmaster was forced to face Lei Ming head-on.

Boom!

The young grandmaster stood motionless in place.

His eyes had lost all light.

The instant Song Yue killed Ou Qiang, he also turned toward another grandmaster from the Ou family camp.

Thunder energy surged violently within him, and runic light flickered across his skin. Had he not been wearing thick clothing, the radiance would have almost burst fully into view.

Using the special body technique from the body-refining art once more, Song Yue was now experienced enough to know exactly when his strength would begin to fade.

He had to capitalize on the moment and enlarge his gains now.

The grandmaster he charged at even showed a look of panic when Song Yue rushed toward him.

What was all that talk about a forbidden art causing weakness for a long time?

This terrifying monster had just smashed a man who had also used a forbidden art and had raised his combat strength to the middle stage of the grandmaster realm, right before everyone’s eyes!

And that was called weakness for a long time?

Go to hell with that nonsense!

Without the slightest hesitation, the young grandmaster from the Ou family turned and ran.

Song Yue yanked the alloy spear from the ground and, while sprinting at high speed, used a standard javelin throw to hurl it forward.

The other man was fleeing, but very cleverly did not choose a straight line. He veered around, then leaped upward, springing high into the air.

At that exact moment, Song Yue’s alloy spear arrived.

Although the grandmaster still managed a high-difficulty evasive maneuver in midair, twisting so hard it seemed his lower back might snap, he still could not completely avoid the strike. One of his legs was pierced clean through by the alloy spear, and he screamed as he fell from the sky.

Only then did the roaring sonic boom of a fighter jet finally reach everyone’s ears.

Song Yue took only a few steps to reach where the grandmaster was falling, then leaped high and delivered a spinning kick, slamming his heel directly into the man’s skull.

He kicked the man’s head apart.

At that point, a faint sense of weakness began to seep through his body.

Song Yue knew it was about time.

Below, on the plaza, with the deaths of Ou Qiang and that young grandmaster, the Lin family’s people also quickly joined the fray.

Things had reached this point; there was no longer any room for compromise between the two sides.

They might as well kill to their hearts’ content.

As for whether the two families would come to hate each other over this after they got out, that was no longer something they could control.

In truth, even now, if one looked only at the numbers on paper, the Ou family still held the advantage.

In order to ensure Song Yue’s death and also to gain something from the underground palace, they had indeed made thorough preparations. They had brought a large number of veteran masters, and their grandmaster contingent numbered close to ten.

Including the ones that Ou Qiang had just rallied, there were more than a dozen grandmasters alone.

Even after losing a few now, if the rest had been able to gather together like Ling Xiaohan and Lei Ming, they would still have formed a formidable force, even if they could not manage any exquisite coordination.

But the survivors were already frightened out of their wits.

They did not even dare remain here, let alone gather together and continue hunting. They only hated that their parents had not given them two more legs, and some were even scrambling away on all fours in all directions.

This included the members of the Ou family as well.

Several grandmasters displayed astonishing ability in fleeing, leaping hundreds of meters at a time and surpassing their own limits. If a monkey demon saw them, it would have to kneel and call them father.

After Ling Xiaohan and the others killed several of the slower fugitives, they stopped the pursuit and moved to guard Song Yue.

They all knew that Song Yue had definitely used the forbidden art that instantly raised his battle power once again, so at this moment he should be relatively weak.

He had to be protected, or someone lurking in the shadows might take advantage of him.

Song Yue looked at the several vigilant faces around him and felt warm in his heart. "Come on. I’ll treat you to a feast of seafood."

After a battle like this, even the Lin family juniors who had once held some opinions about him had now become comrades bound by life and death.

For wolves and jackals, there is a long blade. For comrades, there is fine wine.

The group found a secluded place, and then the Lin family juniors stared dumbfounded as Song Yue conjured a pile of things out of thin air inside the underground palace that suppressed all arts and techniques.

A barbecue grill, a roasting pan, all kinds of seasonings, and... a great deal of seafood radiating powerful fluctuations of energy.

Ling Xiaohan and the others remained calm and composed.

The Lin family juniors led by Lin Wenbo suddenly began to understand why the family valued this young man so highly.

It seemed... not only because he might become the Lin family’s son-in-law.

Though inwardly shocked, the Lin family juniors did not ask a single question.

They even decided to keep the secret buried in their stomachs, never to speak of it after they left.

Making friends with such a person... no, with such a group of people, was obviously far better than gossiping about their private affairs everywhere.

Especially since Song Yue dared to bring these things out in front of them from a storage artifact, it meant he already trusted them fully. They had to live up to that trust.

Very quickly, the group began eating with gusto.

After only one bite, Ling Xiaohan looked up in surprise at Song Yue. "What level are these shrimp and crabs? Why is their vital energy so rich?"

Song Yue said, "Not that high. Foundation-Building and Meridian-Opening, that’s all."

The several Lin family juniors, whose bodies were already brimming with energy to the point of nearly bursting, all stared at Song Yue with black lines on their faces.

Seafood at the Foundation-Building and Meridian-Opening level... and that was not very high?

Were the horizons of young warriors these days really this lofty?

Ling Xiaohan blinked and looked at Song Yue. "Brother, you’re getting a little carried away."

A single seafood feast completely made up for everyone’s earlier consumption.

After eating and drinking their fill, Song Yue rose to his feet, glanced at the others, and said, "Come on. Let’s go to the Hall of Scriptures and pick a few classic texts that the Lin family can pass down for generations."

At last it is done. It is already two minutes past the deadline, so I have to ask for your guaranteed monthly votes.

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