The life drained out of the first assassin in a matter of seconds, his body going limp against Lu Feng’s frame before he even had a chance to twitch. Lu Feng lowered the corpse gently to the forest floor, stepping out of the shadows as the remaining six assassins slowly turned around, their weapons raised in sudden alarm.
"Over there! He’s right behind—!"
Before the second assassin could finish his warning, Lu Feng vanished from their line of sight. The Primordial Chaos Bead inside his core flared with silent energy, driving his legs forward with a speed that felt almost unnatural. He closed the gap in less than a heartbeat, his borrowed broadsword sweeping low in a deadly arc.
The heavy steel cleaved cleanly through the second man’s ankles, dropping him to his knees with a shriek of agony. Before the man could even begin to fall forward, Lu Feng brought the pommel of his blade down hard against the crown of his skull, crushing bone and silencing him instantly.
"Monster!" the third assassin yelled, his face draining of all color as panic violently took hold of his ranks. He thrust his broadsword forward in a blind, frantic panic.
Lu Feng sidestepped the wild thrust with effortless grace, his mismatched eyes tracking the slow, clumsy movement of the blade as if it were crawling through honey. He stepped inside the man’s unguarded flank, burying his dagger deep into the soft flesh beneath the ribs. The man choked on his own blood, his fingers slipping from his weapon as he collapsed into the dirt.
"Surround him! Don’t let him move!" the apparent leader of this small squad barked, backing away a step as fear gripped his chest.
Three of the remaining four assassins lunged simultaneously, their blades forming a web of sharp steel meant to trap Lu Feng from all sides. But numbers meant nothing when the speed gap was this vast.
Lu Feng spun on his heel, using the momentum to deflect the first sword with a sharp, metallic clang, then ducked smoothly beneath the second. He grabbed the third man’s wrist, twisting it with brutal force until bone snapped with a loud crack, and shoved the screaming assassin directly into the path of his comrade’s oncoming blade.
The fourth man accidentally drove his sword straight through his teammate’s shoulder, a look of sheer horror crossing his face.
"Traitor—!" the wounded man gasped, coughing up dark blood.
"I didn’t mean to!" the fourth man stammered, pulling his blade free in a panic.
Lu Feng didn’t give them a single second to recover from the chaos. He swept his leg out in a low, vicious kick that caught the fourth man squarely in the chest, sending him crashing backward into a thick tree trunk with enough force to crack his ribs and knock him unconscious.
The final two standing members of the squad dropped their weapons, their legs trembling so violently they could barely stand. They looked at Lu Feng as if he were a demon walking the mortal realm.
"Please," one of them stammered, raising his hands in surrender. "Spare us—we were just—!"
Lu Feng didn’t hesitate. Mercy on a battlefield where others sought your head was nothing more than an invitation to your own grave. He moved like a ghost, his blade flashing twice in the dim moonlight. Two quiet wet thuds echoed through the clearing as the remaining pair collapsed into the dirt alongside their fallen comrades, joining the growing pile of bodies.
Silence descended upon this section of the forest once again, thicker and heavier than before. Lu Feng stood amidst the carnage, his breathing steady, his clothes completely free of a single drop of blood thanks to the way his newly awakened core naturally deflected external debris and moisture.
He glanced down at the scattered weapons left behind by the dead men. Among them, lying near a thick root, was a heavy, iron-tipped hunting spear.
Farther away, deeper in the thicket where the remaining thirty assassins were huddled under the command of their main leader, angry shouts could be heard. The bandit boss was pacing back and forth, furiously barking orders to his remaining men, demanding to know why none of his squads were reporting back and screaming threats about executing the next person who failed him.
"You idiots!" the leader roared, pointing angrily toward the dark path leading deeper into the woods. "Go out there and sweep the entire perimeter! If you find that brat, I want him skinned alive! Move!"
As the group of thirty assassins began to fan out in response to their commander’s bellowing voice, Lu Feng picked up the heavy iron-tipped spear from the ground.
He tested its weight in his hand, feeling the balanced iron shaft. He hadn’t planned on throwing it—he only meant to test its balance before engaging them up close. But as he looked through the brush toward the distant, posturing leader, a strange, instinctual surge of power erupted from his lower abdomen.
The Primordial Chaos Bead spun wildly within his abdomen, channeling an absurd, overwhelming amount of raw, explosive force straight down his arm and into his fingertips. Before he could consciously process what he was doing, his arm whipped forward with the speed of a striking viper, hurling the heavy spear into the night sky with a deafening sonic crack.
Swooosh!
The spear tore through the air, cutting a visible wake through the mist and foliage. It moved so fast that it left a faint trail of compressed white air in its path.
Before the bandit leader could even finish his sentence, the heavy iron spear slammed directly into the chest of one of the assassins standing right beside him. The sheer, terrifying energy behind the throw didn’t just pierce the man’s armor; it drove completely through his torso, lifted his entire body clean off the ground, and carried him backward through the air before violently pinning him to the trunk of a massive stone-pine tree several yards away.
The heavy iron tip buried itself deep into the solid wood, leaving the dead assassin suspended mid-air, his arms dangling limply at his sides.
Dead silence fell over the clearing.
All thirty assassins froze in absolute, unadulterated terror, their jaws dropping as they stared at their comrade pinned like an insect to the tree. The leader stopped pacing entirely, his face turning pale as a ghost as he slowly turned his head to look at the trembling corpse, then back toward the dark tree line from where the projectile had originated. Not a single person breathed.
Even Lu Feng stood frozen in the shadows, staring blankly through the leaves at the distant tree. He hadn’t intended to throw it that hard, nor had he expected it to carry enough force to lift a full-grown man off the ground and nail him to solid wood from over fifty paces away.
He slowly lowered his empty hand, staring down at his own fingers in utter disbelief.
"What the fuck was that?" Lu Feng muttered under his breath, his mind reeling as he tried to comprehend the monstrous strength now hiding inside his mortal frame. It was outright absurd!