May 27, 1018. 6:13 p.m.
In Yunmeng City, Tiannan Province, Dayu, stood Chihe Apartments, a thirty-three-story building.
Yaoguang stood calmly inside the elevator, listening to the chime each time it passed a floor.
There was also a couple in their twenties and a schoolgirl wearing the uniform of No. 15 High School, which was located not far away.
Thud!
A dull impact suddenly rang out. The elevator, which had just reached the twelfth floor, jolted and stopped working. The lights inside went completely dark.
"Another blackout? What the hell do those power company people even do? That's five or six times in the past two months!" the young man grumbled.
"Blackouts have been happening more and more often over the past year or two. Sometimes more than ten times a month. I read online that the sun is currently in its most active phase, and solar storm eruptions are disrupting the power grid and causing global magnetic-field anomalies," the woman explained.
"I don't care whether the sun is active or not," the man replied irritably before kicking the elevator doors. "All I care about is when the power comes back on!"
"Solar storms usually don't last long, but if they damage electrical equipment, it's hard to say how long the outage will last. On average, the power comes back within half an hour to an hour," the woman said.
"Damn it, so we're stuck here for at least half an hour!?" the man cursed again and kicked the elevator doors even harder.
The loud noise startled the high school girl, making her huddle in the corner of the elevator.
"Sorry…"
Yaoguang spoke up politely. "Could you please stop kicking the doors? If you damage them, it could—"
"Is this elevator yours? Whether I kick it or not is none of your business!" the man rudely cut him off.
Before Yaoguang could say anything else, the man delivered a hard kick toward the doors. Bang!
Under the dim light, Yaoguang glanced at the man, specifically at his neck. He had noticed from the beginning that the man was about six feet one and muscular, most likely because he exercised regularly.
Yaoguang pondered for a moment. By martial arts standards… Ah, he couldn't be called a martial artist yet. At most, he was only a beginner.
Was the ability to injure others the root of killing intent?
In a law-abiding society, that wasn't necessarily true. At most, it only made someone act more brutally and recklessly.
However…
At this distance, a single punch would be enough to break his neck.
Yaoguang's gaze shifted to the anxious high school girl beside them.
Forget it. There's a student here.
He said nothing more.
Seeing that reaction, the man snorted contemptuously and arrogantly kicked the elevator doors again.
Bang!
"All right, all right. Everyone knows you just passed your martial arts certification. Stop showing off. If you damage the doors, you'll have to pay for them," the woman said, pulling at the man's arm.
"So what if they break? The power's out, and there are no surveillance cameras. Who's going to find out?"
The man sneered, but stopped looking for trouble.
Time passed in tedious silence. Fortunately, it took only about three minutes for the backup power to come on. The elevator began humming and operating again.
As soon as the doors opened on the first floor, the couple strolled out first, followed by the still-frightened schoolgirl, who hurried toward her school. Yaoguang exited last, walking calmly without rushing.
Once outside the apartments, he scanned a rental bicycle, mounted it, and pedaled toward the old district. The place was actually a redevelopment zone, and all its residents had already moved away.
Yaoguang glanced at the map projected inside his mind, studying the marked red dot and estimating its position. After that, he chose a shop that had been closed for a long time and sat on the concrete steps in front of it. He held a bottle of mineral water and drank from it now and then.
A light wind blew, lifting a flyer reading "Building Demolition" from the ground and carrying it farther into the alley. From that direction came a middle-aged man in a dress shirt, his hands clasped behind his back, accompanied by a young woman in her twenties.
The man's deep, calm voice drifted faintly through the alley. "Is there a problem with the Luo family?"
"Yes. The family consists only of a widow and her son, but they have ties to a martial artist named He Feng. That man happened to appear when the forced demolition was carried out. There was a clash, and Liu Zi was kicked to death," the woman reported.
The woman looked like an office professional in her twenties. She wore a business suit that gave her a mature, confident air.
"However, He Feng has already been arrested on murder charges. It shouldn't be difficult to sentence him to death. As for the widow and her son, someone will take care of them tomorrow night."
"This district redevelopment project involves more than three billion in funding. We invested as a technical partner in exchange for a ten percent stake. I don't want any problems."
"Understood, Foster Father," the woman replied crisply.
The man suddenly sensed something. His gaze fixed on a young man sitting on the steps. It was Yaoguang, casually drinking water.
Yaoguang capped his bottle, stood up, and calmly returned the man's stare. "Xia Li, General Manager of Longquan Real Estate?"
"You…" Xia Li frowned, studying the young man closely.
A dangerous aura emanated from this young man.
Xia Li considered himself the strongest man in Yunmeng City, and even a renowned figure at the national level. He had taken more than a dozen lives with his own hands over the past decade. That was one reason investors had insisted on partnering with him for this redevelopment project.
Yet this young man before him, barely in his early twenties, was making him sense danger. It was absurd.
The next second, Yaoguang moved.
He lunged forward like a dragon shooting out of the sea, swift and vicious. His killing intent crashed down like a storm.
In the brief instant their gazes met, Xia Li's mind shook violently.
Killing intent!
It was the kind of killing intent possessed only by someone whose hands were stained with the blood of countless victims.
He no longer dared to let his guard down. He crouched slightly, then shot forward to attack the charging Yaoguang. Xia Li chose to meet him head-on!
As soon as they entered striking range, Xia Li twisted his body, barely avoiding Yaoguang's straight punch. His right hand shot out like lightning, clawing toward Yaoguang's shoulder. The white shirt tore with a sharp sound.
However, before those five fingers could crush Yaoguang's shoulder bone, the young man's shoulder jerked, slipped, and twisted free of the grasp as though coated in melted wax.
At the same time, Yaoguang shifted his position. His right hand turned as he closed in on Xia Li's side, then he slammed himself into Xia Li's chest with brutal force.
Iron Mountain Charge.
Xia Li's pupils contracted. Just as Yaoguang was about to crash into his chest, Xia Li's torso sank inward slightly through precise muscular control, redirecting most of the impact. The tremendous force of the collision dissipated into empty air, leaving Yaoguang slightly off balance.
"Die!"
Xia Li's chest heaved as a terrifying burst of power gathered inside him.
But before the man could act any further, Yaoguang leaned forward and channeled force into his left leg.
Crack!
The floor beneath him shattered.
Using that explosive foothold, his body shot upward. His right knee surged with savage power as it drove straight toward Xia Li's chest!
"Damn it!"
Panic seized Xia Li. He pressed both palms downward to block the incoming knee, but he was already too late.
Bang!
A heavy impact rang out as knee collided with chest.
Xia Li's face flushed deep red, and his eyes burned crimson with pain. However, his iron will enabled him to suppress the pain from his fractured ribs.
As he shifted his right foot to the side, he directed his Jin downward, leaving a footprint in the hard stone floor.
In one fluid motion, he steadied himself and braced his chest against Yaoguang's knee. One arm wrapped around Yaoguang's upper body and left arm, while the other encircled Yaoguang's right leg and waist. The man locked him in a crushing hold.
The hold was like a snake crushing its prey!
His physique had long surpassed the limits of an ordinary human. The strength in both his arms could shatter a person's ribs and spine in an instant.
"Up!" Xia Li roared, tightening his hold with explosive Jin. His biceps bulged as his Jin surged, and he lifted Yaoguang's body off the ground.
Then his waist twisted backward in a perfect suplex, slamming Yaoguang into the ground. The impact was aimed at Yaoguang's head.
If the attack landed, Yaoguang's skull would surely be crushed, killing him instantly.
However, the moment Xia Li lifted him, power flowed through Yaoguang's entire body. His right arm shot out like an arrow, dissolving the flow of Xia Li's Jin and freeing Yaoguang from the man's hold. His hand clenched into a fist and came down like a giant ax toward Xia Li's face.
If Xia Li continued the throw, Yaoguang's head would indeed be smashed against the ground, but the man's forehead would also take the full force of that punch. The result…
Mutual destruction!
Yaoguang would die.
So would he.
As the number-one figure in Yunmeng City's underground world, Xia Li possessed a net worth of hundreds of millions. As a man awash in wealth and power who also held an important official position, how could he be willing to die alongside this nameless young man whose life was worthless?
"Ha!"
At the critical moment, Xia Li roared. His waist twisted, and with all the strength in his arms, he threw Yaoguang's nearly eighty-kilogram body—like a sandbag—toward a sturdy nearby wall.
In midair, Yaoguang didn't appear to care in the slightest about the wall rushing closer. He twisted his body violently, regaining his balance and control.
"I don't care who you are. There's only one ending for you today!" Xia Li roared as he charged forward with a terrifying aura, like a collapsing mountain and churning ocean waves—domineering and unstoppable!
Over the years, he had beaten dozens of men to death with his bare hands. The killing aura forged through that trail of bloodshed now erupted at full force, enough to crush an ordinary man's courage with a single glance.
"Die!"
Just as Yaoguang was one meter from the wall, the young man's body shifted sideways, as though defying gravity, and his feet stepped onto the wall.
Yes, onto the wall!
It was as though space had folded ninety degrees, turning the wall into his footing. He stood upright there!
Upon landing on the wall, his legs and spine bent slightly to absorb the remaining momentum, exactly like a compressed spring.
The next second… the spring was released!
Bang!
The wall exploded.
The reinforced-concrete wall cracked as if struck by an iron wrecking ball, splitting into a spiderweb pattern nearly two meters wide. Dust and debris flew in every direction.
The nearby windows instantly shattered, sending shards of glass down like rain.
Using the force of that recoil, Yaoguang lunged viciously. A surge of Jin rose from his feet, transmitted through his spine, compressed in his right arm, then drove downward with tremendous weight.
Six Harmonies Without a Trace.
A terrifying gust of wind surged toward Xia Li, compressing the air several meters ahead. Around that frozen air, the violent shift in airflow produced the sound of wind and thunder.
Xia Li's pupils contracted sharply.
Damn it!
"Roar!" Xia Li let out a tiger-like roar. Every bone in his body rattled.
At the threshold between life and death, he unleashed every drop of his strength. His blood and Qi burned. The man charged forward like a raging tiger, condensing every stream of his Jin into solid form as he met Yaoguang's attack head-on.
Tiger Roar!
"Die!"
Bang!
A deep roar and a thunderous explosion rang out simultaneously.
A visible shock wave burst outward, scattering dust in every direction.
Dozens of meters away, the woman named Qing'er stared in horror at Xia Li's right arm, twisted grotesquely and broken in several places. His humerus had pierced through the flesh and jutted out.
The devastating attack that had destroyed the man's arm didn't stop there. Its force slammed into his chest, striking directly at his heart.
Bang!
The expensive shirt he was wearing, worth tens of thousands, tore to pieces. His chest caved inward as the fist struck, and all his ribs broke.
The Jin from the punch pierced through his entire torso. Even the back of his shirt exploded into strips of fabric.
The king of Yunmeng City's underground world was thrown eight meters backward, crashing into a concrete utility pole. The reinforced concrete cracked and crumbled. Debris and sparks flew as the severed power cables spewed arcs of light and fire.
"Who… are you…"
Xia Li stared at Yaoguang with pain-reddened eyes.
Still hasn't transformed? Yaoguang wondered inwardly.
Standing eight meters away, he looked at Xia Li without expression and said loudly, "The ninth-generation heir to Dragon Form Fist?"
Thud!
Xia Li crashed heavily to the ground, sending dust flying. His chest rose and fell several more times before finally going still.
"So you're nothing special after all," Yaoguang said calmly.
As he spoke, Yaoguang suddenly shot forward again, swift as lightning, lunging toward Xia Li's fallen body. An invisible sword appeared in his hand and stabbed straight down at Xia Li's head.
The man, who had stopped breathing, suddenly twitched and tried to rise, but he was one step too late.
Squelch!
Blood sprayed everywhere. The invisible sword pierced through his head, pinning it to the ground.
His body froze mid-motion.
The demon claws beginning to form on both his hands—which had nearly transformed the man into a demonic creature—slowly shrank away. Both hands returned to normal, like those of an ordinary man in his fifties.