"Yeah, hurry up and scream!"

"That’s right! Scream a few more times so we can get a good listen!"

"I’ll take a picture. I heard this guy’s ancestors were from the Longyuan Empire, but now he’s no better than a dog, haha..."

...

After their leader, a black man with a silver earring, spoke, his four lackeys immediately chimed in, their eyes filled with mockery and contempt as they stared at the figure on the ground.

One of them was even about to pull a phone from his pocket to record the scene and post it online.

Although Earth Star was home to many races, the Xia Federation was widely considered the world’s hegemon.

Among them, the people of the Purple Gold Empire and the Longyuan Empire were naturally considered nobler.

However, with the public reveal of Secret Martial Artists and the fact that most Speakers were Longyuan People, the yellow-skinned Longyuan People were naturally considered the most distinguished of all—an indisputable fact.

Therefore, as they watched the man before them get beaten, utterly unable to fight back, a perverse thrill surged within them.

It was as if beating him meant their Shahai Country could defeat the Xia Federation.

However, after they spoke, the person on the ground remained motionless.

"Hm?"

The leader, the black man with the silver earring, frowned, his gaze sweeping over the figure at his feet.

By the faint light of a distant streetlight, he could just make out that it was a scrawny young man with barely any meat on his bones.

He was currently curled into a ball, the backs of his hands and cheeks covered in boot prints and wounds.

But unlike a moment ago, when he had been wailing and begging for mercy as they beat him, he was now completely still.

"Hey! You playing dead on me? Huh?"

As he spoke, the leader lifted his leg and kicked the young man in the chest.

The force was so great that the faint sound of a bone breaking could be heard.

A trickle of blood dripped from the corner of the young man’s mouth.

Just then, one of the lackeys seemed to notice something was wrong.

He stepped forward, bent down to check for breath under the man’s nose, and his expression changed instantly.

"Boss, this is bad! I think we actually killed him."

"Fuck! These yellow monkeys are so damn weak. Can’t even take a beating!"

The leader cursed under his breath.

Despite his words, he had no intention of lingering. He turned and motioned for his lackeys to leave.

A death was a criminal case no matter where you were, and Shahai Country was no exception.

Even if he wasn’t afraid, he didn’t want to end up in jail. After all, the people locked up in there were a rough crowd.

However, they had only taken a few steps when a sudden stir came from behind them.

Hearing the noise, they turned to see the young man they had just beaten to death staggering to his feet.

He stood there, rain and blood mingling as they streamed down his face, his gaze resting calmly on them.

"I never expected that, tens of millions of years later, my own descendant would be reduced to being beaten to death by uncultured savages from this land of Barbarians! You bring me nothing but shame!"

"Huh? You looking to die, kid? You like putting on an act, is that it? Fine, I’ll let you act all you want today!"

Hearing this, a flash of anger crossed the leader’s dark face.

He didn’t understand what the man meant by ’descendant tens of millions of years later.’

But he certainly understood an insult like ’savages’ when he heard one.

This bastard actually dared to call them savages. He was now determined to make the guy pay a painful price.

’Once I break his arms and legs, we’ll see if he’s still so arrogant.’

With that, he roared and charged, swinging a massive fist that whistled through the air toward the young man.

The Young Man’s eyes narrowed. Just as the fist was about to connect, he sidestepped, nimbly avoiding the ferocious blow.

In that split second, just as his opponent’s momentum was spent but before he could recover, the Young Man shot his leg up, driving his knee with extreme speed toward the man’s groin.

The strike was precise and vicious, landing as a direct hit.

’CRACK!’

It sounded as if something had shattered.

The black man’s eyes bulged. He doubled over in agony and collapsed to his knees, completely incapacitated.

"Boss! Fuck!"

The turn of events was too sudden, so fast that the other four had no time to stop it.

All they saw was their boss, a burly man standing six-foot-three, screaming hoarsely like a stuck pig as he knelt on the ground, as if he’d been impaled from behind.

Just then, someone attacked from the side. The Young Man quickly dropped into a crouch and simultaneously performed a leg sweep, aiming for his attacker’s lower body.

Unable to dodge in time, the man lost his balance and fell heavily to the ground.

Without a moment’s hesitation, the Young Man rolled toward him. The instant the man hit the ground, he clamped his hands onto his head like iron pincers and twisted with all his might.

With a sharp "SNAP," the man’s neck was broken, and he died on the spot.

In the dim light, the other three didn’t realize their companion was dead and charged forward with enraged roars.

The Young Man sprang to his feet and shot forward. The moment he reached the foremost attacker, he suddenly dropped low and slipped under the man’s arm.

Simultaneously, his hands shot out, accurately grabbing the man’s wrist. He pulled hard, then used the man’s own momentum to send him staggering.

He weaved nimbly between the three of them.

At times he sidestepped to dodge, at others he threw a quick punch or unleashed a savage kick.

Each attack carried immense power and was aimed with deadly precision, leaving them no way to defend.

WHOOSH!

The wind howled.

One man tried to attack from behind, but the Young Man, as if he had eyes in the back of his head, lashed out with a back kick that landed squarely on the man’s abdomen.

The man bent over in pain and spat out a mouthful of blood.

Another man swung a punch. The Young Man swiftly caught his wrist and twisted hard. With a loud ’SNAP,’ the man’s wrist was brutally broken.

With his other hand, he clenched his fingers into a fist and punched the man in the throat.

Instantly, the man clutched his throat, his face a mask of agony, before staggering and collapsing.

The last man looked at his fallen companions.

He looked at the crimson pools of blood on the ground.

His face was stricken with terror, as if he had seen a ghost.

Fear made his legs go soft, and he began to tremble like a leaf.

"Oh, damn it... a Devil! You... you’re a Devil!"

He stammered out the curse, then immediately turned and ran toward the alley entrance in the distance.

The next moment.

SWISH!

The sound of something cutting through the air came from behind him.

A rock shot through the air like a meteor, striking the last of the young men squarely in the back of the head.

With a dull ’THUD,’ his body went limp and he pitched headfirst onto the ground.

Since he landed face-down, his face was immediately smashed into a bloody pulp.

Then, a few more dull thuds echoed.

The alley instantly fell silent, leaving only the sound of the freezing rain as it continued to fall with a soft, pattering sound.

"Huff... huff...!"

The Young Man panted heavily, casually tossing aside the blood-stained brick in his hand.

Clearly, that flurry of action had taken a tremendous toll on him.

"It truly worked... I have returned!"

The Young Man—the revived Ji Wuxing—only caught his breath after everyone was dealt with.

His body swayed as he leaned against a nearby wall. He tilted his head back, feeling the freezing rain strike his face like steel needles.

A faint stinging sensation followed.

But it only made the smile on his face impossible to suppress, and it gradually spread until he let out a maniacal laugh.

He was the Emperor of the Taixuan Dynasty from the Miwu Civilization, Ji Wuxing.

The Secret Martial Art he cultivated was his own unique and extremely special creation; it allowed him to resurrect himself in the body of one of his own descendants after they died.

Of course, this had only been a theory, with no proof of whether it would succeed.

To prevent a situation where all his descendants died out and left him unable to resurrect, during his reign, he built a harem, gathering thirty thousand concubines from all over the world. Once they had all conceived and given birth to his children, he sent them away.

This was all thanks to Ji Wuxing’s astonishing physique as a Refining God Venerable, which allowed him to labor day and night without stopping. A normal man would have likely been exhausted to death upon the bellies of those concubines.

It seemed now that everything he had done had truly succeeded.

His only dissatisfaction, however, was that he seemed to have revived a bit too late.

’And this body is far too weak. I need to recover my strength as soon as possible.’

’Fortunately, the Heaven and Earth Primordial Energy in this era is exceptionally dense. With my foundation, it won’t be difficult to recover.’

He thought of the thing that had destroyed the Miwu Civilization and killed him.

A cold glint flashed in Ji Wuxing’s eyes.

’Mother Earth? This time, I will not lose again!’

He paused for a moment.

He heard the sound of what seemed to be footsteps approaching from the distant mouth of the alley.

Ji Wuxing then strode off in the other direction, disappearing around the corner.

...

「Late that night, the world outside was pitch black.」

In a white hospital room, a figure covered in tubes and wrapped up like a mummy lay silently on the bed.

The acrid smell of disinfectant hung in the air.

On the EEG monitor to one side, the normally wavy line looked like faint, stirring ripples.

However, as time passed, the amplitude of the waves gradually decreased.

The faint hum of the machine seemed especially clear in the quiet room. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Soon, the line became as placid as the surface of a lake, without a single ripple.

Then, it became a straight line.

Simultaneously, a continuous beeping alarm began to sound.

A moment later, a nurse arrived. Seeing the figure on the bed showing no signs of life, she hurried out to get help.

But at that very moment.

From the darkness outside the window, a translucent, golden ray of light seemed to shoot through the glass.

It landed on the lifeless figure.

The next moment.

Something horrifying happened.

The line on the EEG monitor, which had gone flat, suddenly resumed its wave-like pattern.

And the motionless figure on the bed abruptly opened his eyes.

He sat up.

He looked at the unfamiliar surroundings.

His eyes were filled with confusion.

’I... who am I? I’m Li Hai, a twenty-two-year-old orphan. I was hit by an out-of-control car and ended up in the hospital.’

’No, that’s just this body’s memory. I am Ouyang Shuokong, Patriarch of the Ouyang Family, a veteran of a hundred years of war, the creator of Qi Blood Martial Arts!’