Seeing Qin Ziwen, Tang Xiao reached into his coat and took out a Card. "I’m willing to..."

The words never left his lips. Qin Ziwu’s blade had already struck.

The blade flashed like cold lightning, sinking into Tang Xiao’s chest with a sickening tear. The sheer force of the blow sent him flying backward.

It happened so fast that almost no one present had time to react.

A murderous glint had just appeared in the eyes of the four men surrounding Tang Xiao when a storm of blades descended upon them, a wall of steel so dense it was inescapable.

Among them, a lean man wielding a pair of iron rods moved with incredible speed. In a flurry of motion, he parried three or four blades, his techniques disciplined and methodical. He was clearly a trained martial artist.

Qin Ziwen glanced at him and used Insight.

[Ordinary Human: ☆☆☆☆☆]

’Flesh and blood, the peak of what an ordinary human can achieve. This must be one of the experts painstakingly trained by the Jianghu Association.’

But in the narrow hallway, unarmored and facing a net of blades, he had nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

Du Yu, positioned behind him, added to the immense pressure. A single moment of carelessness was all it took for a blade to slash the back of his hand, causing the iron rod to fall to the floor with a CLANG.

The next second, a flurry of flashing blades engulfed him.

He was hacked to pieces.

The battle was over quickly.

Bodies lay scattered across the floor in disarray.

Qin Ziwen reflected for a moment. He suddenly felt that it had all gone too smoothly.

It was an even easier victory than he had anticipated.

But then he silently shook his head. ’No, that’s not it. It was easy this time because I made a meticulous plan beforehand.’

’They probably never expected I could open a Node and launch a surprise attack right on their doorstep.’

’We caught them completely off guard.’

Qin Ziwu searched the corpse of the square-faced, broad-nosed man and found the Card he had just pulled out.

"Ziwen, this is the Card he was pulling out. Wait—" Qin Ziwu’s expression was strange. The Card in his hand wasn’t a Summon Card or any other kind of dangerous Card. It was an Advanced Resource Duplication Card.

’So why was he pulling this out...?’

Qin Ziwen said nothing. He took the Card, glanced at it, and casually stuffed it into his pocket.

"It’s fine. You did the right thing." Qin Ziwen saw no issue. ’If he had pulled out a Summon Card and brought forth a Giant Beast like a Duck-billed Dragon or a Tyrannosaurus inside this building, we would have been in real trouble.’

"Everyone, search the place. Quickly. Don’t take too long."

’This man seemed to hold a high position in the Jianghu Association. There should be plenty of good stuff in this house.’

While the others rummaged through the building, Qin Ziwen went to the top floor and looked out from the rooftop terrace.

The once-spacious courtyard had, at some point, become "narrow" again. The massive Giant Wood Shipyard had also vanished without a trace.

The other buildings that had been in the corners of the courtyard were also gone.

The entire courtyard gave him the feeling that it was "dead."

Utterly lifeless.

Meanwhile, the sound of frantic footsteps and hushed voices echoed from the alley outside the courtyard.

The people of the Urban Village had been alerted and were now gathering in this direction.

In a high-rise farther away, the glow of a fire appeared.

Qin Ziwen said, "Hurry up. It’s time for Cao Biansheng and his men to come over."

The words had barely left his lips when a window in the opposite building shattered, and a figure plummeted from the third floor.

It hit the ground, twitched twice, and then went still.

Immediately after, flames erupted inside the building, and black smoke billowed from the window.

Cao Biansheng and his group rushed out of the building’s entrance and hurried toward them.

As they drew closer, Qin Ziwen saw that someone in their group was being helped along, stumbling as if injured, but still conscious.

"Let’s go."

Soon, everyone passed through the Node and returned to their Home.

After returning to the Home, Qin Ziwen recalled the Node.

Of his three Node slots, one was now temporarily on cooldown for seven days.

Meanwhile, back in the courtyard, a large number of Jianghu Association members poured in, making the once-spacious yard feel cramped again.

Heads bobbed at the rear of the throng as the crowd parted.

"Brother Long." 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"Brother Long."

Yang Long walked into the courtyard and stared at the empty space where the shipyard had been, silent for a long moment.

THUMP!

He suddenly clenched his fist and slammed it into the wall.

"Fuck!"

Yang Long roared, "Fucking idiot! That goddamn idiot! I told him, be careful, be careful! Why didn’t he listen to me?!"

Yang Long was like a raging lion.

No one around dared to approach him.

In the Jianghu Association, Yang Long’s position was second only to Tang Xiao’s.

Yang Long’s chest heaved. His eyes were wide with fury as he stared intently at the three-story building before him.

’The Jianghu Association was able to stand against the Blood Words not because of any single individual, but because of our collective strength! That, combined with our unique buildings, was what allowed us to form a partnership with them.’

’Take the Giant Wood Shipyard, for instance. It couldn’t be plundered because it was bound to the Lord of the Homeland.’

’That was our greatest asset.’

’Coupled with the fact that our Urban Village had considerable combat strength of its own, we were able to maintain a temporary balance with the Blood Words.’

’But now, Tang Xiao is dead.’

’The shipyard is gone.’

"Brother Long, all our men inside... they’re dead," reported a member who had gone in to check.

Yang Long was silent. ’Anyone Tang Xiao brought into the building would have been one of his elites.’

’He remembered there were usually at least a dozen of them inside.’

"Brother Long, a dozen of our guys in the building across the way are dead, too," another underling panted, running up from behind.

"Mm." Yang Long was already numb. Compared to Tang Xiao’s death, losing thirty-odd men was a trivial matter.

After weighing his options, Yang Long looked up at his men. "You all know the situation with the Blood Words. If you don’t want to be absorbed by them, then from now on, you listen to me."

"Brother Long, we’ll listen to you."

"Yeah!"

Everyone present voiced their agreement.

The atmosphere at Hongding Mansion was too oppressive. They’d felt a sense of dread ever since their first contact on the previous map.

But their factions’ buildings had fused together, leaving them no choice but to keep interacting.

A few moments later, a group from Hongding Mansion arrived.

Leading them was an old acquaintance of Yang Long’s, Pu Jia.

As the number three figure in the Blood Words, he was also their most public face. He was primarily in charge of the Blood Words’ external hunting operations, so the two of them often worked together.

Pu Jia stood on his tiptoes, scanning the surroundings before his gaze finally settled on the courtyard. He then tilted his head to look at Yang Long. Under the light of the surrounding torches, Pu Jia’s bleached-white hair was particularly striking.

"Hey, what the hell did you guys do? Where’s our giant shipyard?!" Pu Jia spread his arms wide, a look of utter disbelief on his face.

"Tang Xiao’s dead. The shipyard’s gone," Yang Long replied calmly.

Pu Jia’s eyebrows shot up in disbelief. "You’re telling me your boss got himself whacked right here, under the protection of your entire Urban Village? Holy shit."

Pu Jia clutched his head, his expression exaggerated. "Are you guys a bunch of pigs? You couldn’t even stall them?"

Yang Long said, "The opponents we were matched with this time are powerful. They had a way of getting to our island without making a sound."

Pu Jia shrugged. "Powerful? Don’t make excuses. If they were really that tough, why didn’t they come after me?

Let’s be honest, it’s because you’re all weak and easy to pick on!

We spent all that manpower helping you chop wood, and this is what we get in the end. Heh heh heh... The boss doesn’t have a great temper. You’d better figure out how you’re going to explain this to him."

...

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