Chapter 6: An Easy Kill, Promoted to Energy Condensation!
The next evening.
The abandoned, cramped firewood shed sat pitch black—you couldn’t see your own hand in front of your face—with only two small holes in the door letting in slivers of light.
Someone had been waiting there, patiently, agonizingly.
From the Hour of the Rat the previous night until now, he’d been standing there for nearly a full day!
Gu Lin felt no hunger or exhaustion whatsoever—only a burning craving to hunt, the predatory instinct buried deep in a man’s bones finally erupting to the surface.
Peering through the hole, his eyes fixed unblinking on the world outside, sharp and gleaming.
Would his prey actually come?
If it came, could he land a single decisive killing blow?
Gu Lin himself wasn’t entirely certain. He was gambling—gambling on Shen Chi’s greedy, lecherous nature, and gambling on the true power of his Mysterious Netherworld Palm.
The wait dragged on and on. By the time the sky reached the Hour of the Rooster, the surroundings had gone utterly silent, broken only by the intermittent chirping of crickets.
Suddenly.
The faint sound of footsteps drifted over from the distance.
Gu Lin’s spirit snapped to full alertness, and he did his best to hold his breath.
Three sets of footsteps grew steadily heavier.
Gu Lin peered through the hole, his pupils contracting sharply.
He saw three figures at the mouth of the alley.
Shen Chi and his two lackeys!
They’d come!
Watching the three men approach, Gu Lin suddenly frowned.
Everything so far had unfolded exactly as he’d anticipated.
With Miss Liu’s wedding the very next day, Shen Chi, driven by his twisted possessive urges, would very likely pay his lover a nighttime visit.
Even this concealed back alley had been within his calculations.
But one thing had gone off script.
The two lackeys hadn’t posted themselves as lookouts at the mouth of the alley—it looked like they intended to climb the wall alongside Shen Chi and follow him into the Liu residence?
Which meant he’d now have to face all three of them at once?
The two lackeys weren’t trained guards or martial specialists, merely servants who ran errands—so their cultivation wasn’t especially deep.
Yesterday at the pawnshop, Gu Lin had paid close attention: the Qi signature radiating from these two had been only slightly stronger than Shen Chi’s, likely Energy Condensation, First or Second Layer at most.
He himself was only at Meridian Opening, Seventh Layer—he didn’t even have internal Qi yet.
Taking on all three at once—how could he possibly manage that?
His thoughts raced in an instant, and meanwhile the master and his two servants drew steadily closer to the thatched-hut alley.
Only thirty paces away now.
Twenty-five paces.
Twenty paces.
‘This is too risky. Should I abandon it?’
The Sacred Ground selection trials were drawing ever closer—did he really lack even the nerve to take a single gamble now?
Even if he failed, he still had the Wave-Treading Steps to make his escape!
‘Screw it.’
In that instant, Gu Lin’s body coiled taut like a drawn bowstring, his fingers clenching into fists, the latent force coursing through his seven main meridians and eight extraordinary vessels surging into rapid motion.
He smashed the door apart with a single punch and shot forward like an arrow loosed from the bow.
Bang—
A tremendous sound tore through the night.
The horse-faced lackey reacted with lightning speed, pulling the young master behind him, staring at the masked figure in black with extreme tension.
The hawk-nosed lackey trembled violently, instinctively spinning around to flee.
“An assassin…”
Shen Chi’s face turned deathly pale, shaking with terror.
In the span of two breaths, the masked figure in black closed the distance to just eight paces away.
The horse-faced lackey sank his Qi into his dantian, gathering force to unleash the Shen family’s signature Mantis Fist—but his face broke into an expression of unprecedented, bizarre confusion.
It wasn’t fear.
Nor was it despair.
It was shock, tangled up with sheer absurdity.
He was utterly, completely dumbfounded!
He almost wanted to laugh.
The assassin had no internal Qi at all…
Someone at mere Meridian Opening, daring to attempt an assassination…
Beside him, Shen Chi’s jaw dropped and his eyes bulged the instant he sensed the explicit force—not even the finest actor on any stage could have replicated the expression on his face in that moment.
Master and servants exchanged a look without meaning to, the corners of their mouths twitching faintly.
‘This lunatic’s finally cracked completely—this is a performance for the ages!’
The assassin closed in, mere inches away now.
All three men held back grins, no fear whatsoever in their eyes, and struck simultaneously.
Internal Qi projected outward, fast as lightning!
Boom—
Three Mantis Fist strikes crashed out from three different directions, faint mantis-shaped afterimages flickering around each fist, the force overwhelming, surely enough to reduce the assassin to a smear of flesh.
However.
The single most terrifying moment of all then unfolded.
The Meridian Opening assassin they’d found so laughably deranged seemed to teleport, dodging every one of their certain-kill blows entirely.
Though he’d been mere inches away just an instant before, the assassin suddenly appeared to their left, then immediately began circling with blinding speed as though tracing the positions of some hexagram diagram.
“Watch out!” the horse-faced lackey roared in terror.
Too late!
The assassin gathered his strength into a single strike, driving straight for Shen Chi.
That palm strike was plain, unadorned—it carried no internal Qi at all, only pure Qi, blood, and explicit force.
But Shen Chi felt as though struck by lightning, his heart stopping cold in an instant.
He could distinctly feel an unbearably frigid, sinister aura radiating from it.
Bang—
Shen Chi instinctively raised his arm to block, but that palm strike came down like an unstoppable force, landing squarely on his right shoulder.
“Argh…!”
In an instant, Shen Chi let out an agonized howl, his face rapidly turning ashen and purple, layer upon layer of frost creeping across his right arm.
Boom—
That frigid, sinister energy rampaged wildly through his body, corroding through his internal organs one by one. Shen Chi collapsed to the ground with a heavy thud, the frost spreading across him at a terrifying speed.
Within three breaths, he’d become nothing but a frozen statue!
The two lackeys stood frozen in what felt like a living hell—they’d never seen such an eerie, malevolent art before in their lives, hadn’t even heard of anything like it.
With no time to grieve or mourn, the two gritted their teeth and fought on with everything they had.
The assassin repeated the same tactic.
His exquisite lightness technique dodged both of their certain-kill blows with ease, and then he struck from behind, unleashing the Mysterious Netherworld Palm once more.
Moments later, two more frozen statues stood in the alley alongside the first.
The masked figure in black steadied his breathing, his eyes beneath the drooping, sorrowful brows blazing with unrestrained excitement, before slipping away along his carefully pre-planned escape route.
On the way home, the masked figure in black could barely contain his exhilaration.
He’d drastically underestimated the true power of the Mysterious Netherworld Palm!!
Only after putting it into practice did he realize just how powerful he’d truly become.
***
At midnight, Gu Lin sat on his own bed, and with a single thought, tiny points of golden light appeared before his eyes, coalescing into the three golden characters: 《Book of Merit》.
【Slew an evildoer of Bing-rank, Four Star】
【Slew an evildoer of Ding-rank, Seven Star】
【Slew an evildoer of Ding-rank, Seven Star】
【Reward: Max-Level Nine Heavens Thunder-Runner Leg】
【Martial Dao Merit: 76/4000】
【Confucian Dao Merit: 0/1000】
【Arcane Dao Merit: 0/1000】
【Witchcraft Dao Merit: 0/1000】
In that instant, a wisp of blood mist erupted from the crown of Gu Lin’s head, veins bulging along his forehead, warm currents surging into his dantian one after another, ravenously devouring the Qi and blood within his body, until it finally condensed into a ball of Qi-mist roughly the size of an iron sphere, spreading through every single acupoint across his body.
His physical strength grew even more formidable, yet his body somehow felt lighter still.
A major realm breakthrough!
Energy Condensation, First Layer!
Gu Lin opened his eyes, spread open his palm, and internal Qi surged forth.
Immediately after, he walked to the window, closed his eyes, and sensed it—the world itself was alive with spiritual energy!
“Hahahahaha, killing and burning brings a golden belt!!”
Gu Lin ultimately couldn’t restrain his sheer delight, throwing punches into the air in celebration right there in his bedroom.
This time, the gamble had paid off, and paid off richly!
Running through the leg techniques flickering in his mind, Gu Lin laughed to himself, murmuring:
“Max-Level Nine Heavens Thunder-Runner Leg—even more powerful than the Mysterious Netherworld Palm!”
After basking in his joy for a good while, he finally settled down and calmed himself.
This kill had gone off flawlessly, but that was no reason to grow arrogant or complacent.
Shen Chi and his men had been mediocre in talent to begin with, their bodies hollowed out by wine and indulgence besides—they’d been at the very bottom rung of Energy Condensation.
Of course, taking down three Energy Condensation cultivators while himself still at Meridian Opening was still an impressive enough feat.
“I can’t afford to slow down these next few days—I need to keep pushing forward at full speed!”
Energy Condensation, First Layer, was nowhere near enough.
At the very least, he needed to reach mid-tier Energy Condensation to feel truly secure.
And besides, he’d now lost one major advantage heading into the academy’s selection trials—he could never use the Mysterious Netherworld Palm again, or he might as well paint “Gu Lin is the assassin” across his own forehead.
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