Chapter 36: Assassination

A young boy and girl entered Su Tang’s field of vision. They were dressed in rags—so torn that they barely covered their bodies—with sallow complexions, and they walked with staggering steps.

“Brother, I’m so hungry…” the girl cried piteously.

“Sister, bear with it. Brother will find something for you to eat in a moment,” the boy comforted her in a low voice.

“I can’t walk anymore, Brother… I really can’t…”

“I…” The boy’s eyes lit up when he saw Su Tang. He led the girl toward him with swaying steps. Upon reaching him, he suddenly fell to his knees with a thud, and the girl knelt beside him.

“Big Brother, please be kind, have mercy on us. We haven’t eaten for three days…” the boy cried.

“I’m so hungry…” the girl’s cries became even more sorrowful.

Looking at the pitiful state of the siblings, Su Tang sighed softly. He felt a bit uneasy; was it because of sympathy? Su Tang took a dozen silver coins out of his pocket, but just as the boy reached out to take them, Su Tang suddenly froze. The boy’s knuckles were abnormally thick, like carrots, and his palms were covered in calluses. This should have been caused by the Cultivation of some special Martial Formula.

Su Tang immediately became alert. At that moment, he faintly heard the sound of whistling wind coming from above. He snapped his head up and saw a person half-kneeling on a rooftop, holding a longbow. The bowstring vibrated violently, and a streak of black light had already flown halfway.

Su Tang instinctively stepped back, trying to avoid the shadow of the arrow. Suddenly, the boy lunged forward and gripped Su Tang’s hands tightly with his thick palms. Although he was short and looked malnourished with a pale face, his hands seemed to possess endless strength, leaving Su Tang unable to move.

Puchi… The arrow landed below Su Tang’s shoulder and pierced deep into his body. This arrow should have pierced through Su Tang’s neck, but fortunately, he had become alert in time and reacted, avoiding the vital spot.

Under the attack of indescribable pain, Su Tang felt his vision go black. In that instant, the girl pulled a dagger from her sleeve and stabbed it into Su Tang’s body.

Puchi… Su Tang suffered another heavy blow. The dagger pierced between his chest and abdomen. This strike was absolutely fatal, and the girl maliciously twisted her wrist, making the dagger rotate and cut inside Su Tang’s body.

Su Tang remained motionless, as if time had stopped. Joy appeared in the eyes of the boy and girl; they had succeeded. The archer on the roof also smiled and lowered his longbow. Behind Su Tang, a young Martial Artist with a longsword resting on his shoulder shook his head. What a joke, he was too weak. There was no need for him to act at all; it was quite boring…

At the end of the long street, a young man waving a fan laughed out loud, laughing with great delight. Meanwhile, the spying old man’s eyes rolled back and his lips trembled violently: “This… this…” Before he could say the third “this,” his body collapsed softly. This was absolutely not the result he wanted, and what he saw was not a heavily wounded Su Tang, but a bloody storm sweeping through all of Changshan County.

Tie Canghai, who was in the tea house, looked surprised and murmured, “Has Zhao Bocheng gone mad…” The scene before him also exceeded his expectations, but he soon smiled again: “This is fine too…”

Tie Canghai smiled and took a sip of tea. It was fine if he died; it would end everything, and it had nothing to do with the Tie Family anyway. In the next moment, Tie Canghai suddenly sensed something. He stood up abruptly, no longer caring about hiding his presence, and stared down with wide eyes.

Su Tang’s body swayed continuously, appearing as if he would collapse at any moment. His consciousness gradually became blurred. The girl’s stab and the malicious twisting had completely severed his chance of survival. Su Tang knew he was about to die.

The attack had come too suddenly. He hadn’t had time to activate his Spirit Soul before suffering consecutive heavy blows. If only he had been alert a little earlier, if only he had paid attention to that feeling of discomfort, perhaps he could have fought back…

Su Tang felt his body gradually sinking into an endless darkness. But at the very moment he completely lost consciousness, he opened his eyes again, looked up, and gazed at the sky with a mechanical, emotionless look.

Tie Canghai’s pupils suddenly contracted. He sensed a Malevolent Qi that came from surviving a hundred battles, an extreme coldness that ignored everything, and an arrogance that could not be described in words. It was as if a god or demon was looking down upon all living beings in the world with a mocking gaze.

Aside from the lack of a tangible pressure of aura, Su Tang was extremely similar to the few true powerhouses he had ever seen.

Su Tang finally moved. He pulled his hands back, but the boy gripped them tightly and refused to let go. As a result, the boy’s body was involuntarily pulled toward Su Tang. Then, Su Tang’s left knee smashed forward like a heavy cannon. The momentum was so thunderous and destructive that it felt as if he were not swinging a knee, but throwing a mountain.

The knee slammed heavily into the boy’s abdomen. The boy’s face suddenly twisted into a lump, and his body was launched into the air, flying eight or nine meters diagonally like a released kite, before crashing to the ground like a dead pig.

The girl was terrified. She gripped the hilt of the dagger tightly, trying to stab deeper, but Su Tang’s hands had already regained their freedom. His left hand reached down and grabbed the girl’s thin wrist, and his right hand clenched into a fist, smashing it into the girl’s face.

Thump… A mist of blood splashed from the girl’s face. Her nose and lips were crushed by Su Tang’s fist, revealing a bloody upper jaw and scattered teeth. The intense pain made her let out a piercing scream, and her body collapsed to the ground.

The archer on the roof hurriedly picked up his longbow again. However, when he pulled an arrow from the quiver behind his waist and notched it on the string, he saw Su Tang’s hands spread wide, as if he were drawing an invisible bow aimed right at him.

In the next moment, a piercing shriek tore through the air. The archer’s body split into two pieces without warning. The upper half flew high up, spraying clusters of blood, looking like a strange rocket, while the lower half slumped over.

Tie Canghai was beyond shocked seeing this. Where did that blurry, hard-to-see longbow in Su Tang’s hand come from? Why could it release such terrifying energy?!

“Bastard!!” The young Martial Artist behind Su Tang saw his companions die one after another and became consumed by rage. With a clang, his sword left its scabbard and swept toward Su Tang’s back.

No matter how terrifying Su Tang’s combat power had been just now, he wasn’t worried at all because he practiced the Piaoyao Formula. The Piaoyao Formula was excellent for skirmishing and entanglement. Dealing with an enemy who was about to collapse, he had enough confidence that he just needed to wear him down for a while.

Unfortunately, he had not considered what would happen if he never had the chance to circulate his Martial Formula in the first place.