He couldn’t kill Xu Yang with a sneak attack, so how could he possibly be his opponent in a direct confrontation?

"Can’t win, so you call it a misunderstanding? Misunderstanding, your ass."

As he spoke, Xu Yang had already caught up to Li Rui’an. With the roar of a tiger in the wind, his fist, covered in Gang Qi, tore through the air.

"BOOM!"

A flash of red light. The scorching Gang Qi erupted, streaking across the air like a powerful current.

Li Rui’an could no longer afford to speak. He could only lift his nearly numb palm and blast out a stream of Gang Qi.

This time, it was his turn to receive Xu Yang’s attack.

His hastily launched Gang Qi instantly collided with Xu Yang’s pinkish Gang Qi.

With a single CRACK, his Gang Qi shattered, pierced through as if it were rotten wood. The unabated force of Xu Yang’s Gang Qi slammed into his body.

"BANG!"

The impact echoed. Fortunately, he still had his Protective Gang Qi, which withstood Xu Yang’s attack. But this defense had reached its limit, leaving only a thin, wavering layer.

Li Rui’an didn’t even have time to breathe a sigh of relief before Xu Yang’s fist, wrapped in suffocating power, came crashing down, effortlessly shattering the thin layer of Protective Gang Qi.

"Not good!" Li Rui’an’s expression changed dramatically.

Before the fist even landed, he felt as if his very flesh was about to tear apart. A sense of mortal peril welled up in his heart.

In his haste, he crossed his arms in front of his chest, once again raising a layer of Gang Qi to protect them.

"BANG!"

"CRACK!"

This time, the crisp sound wasn’t his Gang Qi breaking, but his bones shattering.

Under the assault of Xu Yang’s Iron Fist, Li Rui’an felt the knuckles were as sharp as the tip of a blade. Excruciating pain shot through him as the bones in the point of impact audibly snapped, the flesh blasted into a spray of pulp.

"Ah...!"

A blood-curdling scream echoed through the mountain forest. Li Rui’an’s face contorted in agony, his vision went black, and the bone-deep pain made his entire body tremble.

A wave of mortal terror swept over his Heart Spirit, making it as hard to breathe as if he were drowning.

He wanted to make a sound, to bargain with Xu Yang. He would have agreed to any condition.

But before he could speak, Xu Yang’s second punch, like a tempestuous wave, had already arrived.

He was like a small boat in a storm, on the verge of being capsized at any moment. He raised his one good hand to block, but Xu Yang’s fist dipped, evading his hand and crashing heavily into his chest.

"BANG!"

His Protective Gang Qi exploded. Li Rui’an felt as if he’d been struck by lightning. The backlash from having his Gang Qi violently shattered caused countless tiny cracks to appear on his skin, and in an instant, blood streamed from them.

But that wasn’t all.

Shattering the Protective Gang Qi was only the first step. The true Killing Move was still to come.

"Master Xu, spare me!"

Li Rui’an sensed he was about to die and begged in a low voice.

"Too late!"

Xu Yang’s emotionless voice sounded in Li Rui’an’s ear as his fist made contact with flesh.

"CRACK!"

"SQUELCH!"

Thick blood sprayed from Li Rui’an’s mouth. His solid, sturdy chest caved in as if the bones had vanished in an instant.

As if struck by a sledgehammer, his body was thrown into the air. He continued to cough up mouthfuls of blood in mid-flight, his expression completely consumed by terror.

His sternum was shattered, and his internal organs were riddled with fissures. Even if he didn’t die, he would be crippled for life.

Xu Yang strode forward, chasing after him like an uncaged beast. In mid-air, he grabbed Li Rui’an’s ankle and violently slammed him downward.

"BOOM!"

The air let out a muffled roar. The ground trembled, and terrifying cracks spread out in all directions.

From the immense force, Xu Yang heard a series of crisp, bone-shattering cracks. Li Rui’an’s body was embedded in the ground, bleeding from all seven orifices. He went limp like a pile of mud, his body pierced in countless places by his own shattered bones.

"Don’t kill me..."

The light faded from his eyes as he used his last breath to beg for mercy.

"Are those your last words?"

Expressionless, Xu Yang released the ankle and stomped on Li Rui’an’s face.

"CRUNCH!"

White brain matter, mixed with bone fragments and blood, splattered everywhere. Li Rui’an’s head was now completely caved in.

"Satisfying!"

He couldn’t help but mutter.

This great battle had not only let him kill the man he wanted to but also allowed him to vent the battle lust that came with the surge of power from his Cultivation breakthrough.

He felt like a cool breeze on a sweltering day, an indescribable feeling of comfort and release washing over him.

He bent down to loot the corpse. Aside from a few silver banknotes, there were also twenty contribution points.

It wasn’t much money, just over two hundred taels, which only covered what he had spent on the saber. The twenty contribution points were somewhat useful, but not by much.

He found Li Rui’an’s Identity Waist Token and, with a surge of Gang Qi, obliterated it into dust. Then, he grabbed the corpse and rushed deeper into the mountains.

After running for a while without finding a cave to dump the body, he couldn’t be bothered to search anymore. He dropped the corpse, moved a large boulder over, and slammed it down hard.

"BANG!"

The ground shook. The boulder crushed Li Rui’an’s corpse into a paste against the earth. He then moved the rock aside to let the scent of blood spread, hoping to attract wild beasts.

This was the best he could do to destroy the body and erase all traces.

After checking that he wasn’t stained with blood, he headed back to the Purple Sun Sect.

A quarter of an hour later, he appeared in his courtyard as if nothing had happened.

"Oh, Junior Brother Xu, you went and bought a saber? Planning to learn Saber Technique in the future?" Sun Tao said with a smile.

Xu Yang nodded. "Senior Brother Sun seems to be in a good mood. Did you have a breakthrough in your Cultivation?"

Compared to his sighs of yesterday, Sun Tao was clearly in high spirits today.

Sun Tao shook his head. "Not yet, but I’ve made some headway. It should be soon."

Xu Yang smiled and cupped his fist. "Congratulations in advance, Senior Brother Sun."

The two chatted for a bit before Xu Yang unlocked his door, went inside, and unstrapped the Wolf Fang Saber from his body.

He didn’t know any Saber Technique at the moment, so carrying the saber was useless. He had bought it mainly for his training.

After putting the saber away, he sat cross-legged and continued to consolidate his Cultivation.

Having just broken through, his Gang Qi and physical body both had a lot of room for improvement. It would take at least two or three days of consolidation before everything returned to a normal state.

He focused single-mindedly on his training, without any distractions. When he got hungry, he would come out to eat, then return to his room to continue consolidating his Cultivation.

That night, Li Rui’an did not return to the Purple Sun Sect. The people in his courtyard assumed he was spending the night in the pleasure district of Cyan Yang City and cursed him for being disloyal to his friends.

When he still hadn’t returned the next day, a friend of his, worried he would miss a mission, hurried to Cyan Yang City to look for him but found nothing.

On the way back, the friend noticed signs of a battle and immediately returned to the Sect to report it to a Steward.

The Steward gave him a sharp scolding, asking if he had any proof that something had happened to Li Rui’an. He couldn’t produce any, so the matter was dropped.

By the third day, basically all the new Entry Level disciples of this batch had heard the news of Li Rui’an’s disappearance.

"What are you all talking about? Don’t you have missions to do?"

After consolidating his Cultivation for two days and two nights straight, followed by a long sleep, Xu Yang emerged from his room feeling refreshed and ready to pick up a mission to earn some contribution points.

Pushing open his door, he saw Sun Tao, Jiang Ping, and the others all gathered, whispering amongst themselves.

"Junior Brother Xu, great news! I heard that Li Rui’an has gone missing. Who knows if he betrayed the Sect or met with some misfortune," Sun Tao said with a grin.

There was nothing more delightful than seeing an enemy suffer misfortune.

Everyone had seen Li Rui’an try to snatch Xu Yang’s Elixir that day, so this was indeed something for Xu Yang to be happy about.

Xu Yang said in a solemn voice, "Senior Brother, how can you take pleasure in his misfortune? Li Rui’an and the rest of us are, after all, fellow disciples of the same sect. We are martial brothers. If something has happened to him, it is a misfortune for the Sect. You shouldn’t find joy in tragedy."

Sun Tao: ???

Jiang Ping and the others shot him a strange look. Had he practiced his techniques until he’d gone soft in the head? There were thousands of Outer Disciples; who would actually treat someone else as a true martial brother, especially a person like Li Rui’an? 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Besides, Li Rui’an had bullied Xu Yang before, yet here he was, speaking up for him.

Sun Tao reminded him, "Junior Brother Xu, Li Rui’an bullied you. He’s the one who tried to steal your Elixir last month, the one who got scared off by the Dawn Association."

He thought Xu Yang might not know who Li Rui’an was.

Xu Yang shook his head. "We’ve already reconciled. Li Rui’an found me later and said that day was just a misunderstanding. We’ve become good friends."

Sun Tao was stunned. ’Reconciled?’

’That’s right,’ he thought. ’News that Xu Yang grasped the Wind and Thunder Strength has spread. Li Rui’an probably knew he couldn’t afford to provoke a genius who could almost rival the Ten Heroes.’

Xu Yang then asked, "Senior Brother Sun, do you know how Li Rui’an disappeared? He is a master who has achieved Qi Cultivation Gang. Has the Sect launched an investigation?"

Sun Tao shook his head and recounted what he knew.

Xu Yang secretly breathed a sigh of relief. It was just as he’d thought. The Purple Sun Sect didn’t give a damn about the lives of these Outer Disciple workhorses. If they left the Sect for no official reason and died outside, the Sect couldn’t even be bothered to ask questions.

If they ran out of people, they could just increase the quota during the next Martial Arts Examination, and another herd of workhorses would come rushing over.

Xu Yang’s solemn expression relaxed. "The Sect is right. Perhaps Li Rui’an was just delayed by some business and hasn’t returned yet. How could a master of Qi Cultivation Gang possibly meet with trouble so easily?"

Sun Tao and the others gave him another strange look. Was Xu Yang really that naive?