Chapter 55: Contact

"Watch out!" Seeing the attacker draw his blade, Su Hua shouted sharply and swiftly pulled out a baton.

"I originally wanted to make some money peacefully, but you used every dirty trick in the book and left me with nothing. I'm done pretending. Cards on the table. You're all dead!" the man in the hoodie roared. His figure burst forward like a hunting predator, lunging straight at Su Hua, who had stepped up to intercept him.

In that instant, the surge of power made Su Hua's expression change drastically.

"He has reached the mastery stage of tendon-and-bone strengthening; he's a peak martial master!?" Although Su Hua had already begun tendon-and-bone strengthening, he had yet to achieve any real results. He had passed the certification exams, but his strength could not truly be considered that of a martial master.

Facing someone who had reached the mastery stage of tendon-and bone strengthening, and possibly already begun internal refinement of the organs, he clearly felt the gap between them. The baton he swung would not only fail to stop the hooded man, but it would also likely result in his throat being slit by the lunging short blade.

"How dare you!" Leng Jun, who was also beside Su Chiming, immediately charged forward. Although he carried no weapon, the jin he condensed as his tendons and bones resonated throughout his body caused the punch he threw to shake the air, producing a crisp cracking sound.

This strike dispersed part of the hooded man's energy. The man rotated his left hand, spreading it like a net to catch the incoming punch and its jin. Seizing that brief opening, Su Hua ignored the strain on his muscles and struck with full force. His baton barely intercepted the dagger, sparing him from having his throat cut.

Even so, the hooded man still effectively broke through the joint defense of the two and closed in on Su Chiming.

"You trash dare to fight me? Why don't you take a look at your own strength?!" A flash of savagery crossed the hooded man's eyes. The short blade in his hand whirled, a point of cold light slashing straight toward Su Chiming.

Yet what surprised him was that even with the blade brushing past his face, Su Chiming showed no fear at all. The look he gave him was instead calm and composed.

That bearing forced the attacker to admit that this business tycoon, who had multiplied his assets hundreds of times in just a few decades, truly possessed extraordinary composure.

But no matter how remarkable his temperament was, it meant nothing now. Under his blade, there was only one outcome.

"Hmm?!" Just as Qi Qingsong's blade was about to sweep across Su Chiming's throat and take his life, he suddenly felt his wrist clamped as if by an iron shackle.

The terrifying force coming from above was utterly inhuman. Even with his fingers clenched tight, his wrist felt as though it were being twisted apart by a solid steel bar.

No, it's not an illusion!

Qi Qingsong thought. An unprecedented surge of power surged toward him violently, vibrating through his seized wrist. It instantly crushed his bones, and continuing along the ulna and radius into the humerus, then through the shoulder blade into his internal organs, leaving half his body numb.

The pain of his arm being broken made his body arch backward instinctively, as if that might slightly ease the overwhelming agony.

Before he could even comprehend what had happened, a palm struck his chest, neither rushed nor slow, yet carrying jin as mighty as thunder.

With his circulation disrupted, his body could not react at all. He could only stare wide-eyed as it happened.

Bam!

The jin penetrated his internal organs, causing them to burn as if aflame.

As the grip on his wrist released, his body staggered back three steps before collapsing onto his back. A mouthful of blood burst forth uncontrollably.

Faintly, he seemed to hear a somewhat youthful voice. "This is way too weak."

One of the Ten Tigers of Tiannan struggled to turn his head and finally saw the figure who had dealt him the fatal blow. It was a young man.

Su Yaoguang? I have seen him in the files. He seems to be only nineteen years old. I actually lost to a young man?!

Qi Qingsong thought as he looked at Yaoguang.

Moreover, in both exchanges, the opponent's jin had precisely penetrated through his tendons and bones to shake his internal organs.

That was internal jin! A grandmaster?!

Still shocked beyond belief, Qi Qingsong's consciousness rapidly faded until he completely blacked out.

Yaoguang looked at his own hand, then glanced at the martial master he had nearly killed with a casual palm.

He was used to fighting grandmasters, most of them daemons whose strength far exceeded normal standards. Now that a martial master had suddenly appeared, ending the fight so easily actually felt a bit strange.

"This..." Nearby, Leng Jun stared in astonishment as the hooded man, who had easily broken through the combined defense of himself and Su Hua, was effortlessly crushed by Yaoguang.

He knew Yaoguang was a grandmaster, and he knew grandmasters were far stronger than martial masters. However, he had never imagined the gap would be this vast.

The hooded man could not withstand even a single exchange with Young Master Yaoguang. If I went up against him myself, the result would likely not be any better.

Leng Jun thought silently.

Su Hua stepped forward, pulled off the man's mask, and recognized him. "It's Qi Qingsong."

"So he really was driven to desperation," Su Chiming said in a low voice. He knew of the relationship between Qi Qingsong and Zhang Yushu's group.

In recent decades, with the rise of firearms and their immense lethality, even ordinary people had gained the ability to threaten the lives of the patriarchs of powerful families and even threaten grandmasters. As a result, major factions strongly resisted and rejected the use of physical assassination after losing a power struggle. At the very least, a formal challenge would be issued first.

An outright ambush like Qi Qingsong's would place both him and the interest group he represented in a highly unfavorable position.

Of course, Zhang Yushu had already been driven into a corner, unable to safeguard his group's interests, so taking such a risk was understandable. But once news of this spread, it would trigger a cascade of opportunistic attacks. The interest group centered around Zhang Yushu and Zhang Mingde would inevitably collapse at an even faster pace.

"Within Zhang Yushu's faction, the greatest threat was Qi Qingsong. Now that we've taken him down, the rest are nothing to worry about," Leng Jun said in a low voice. There was weight behind his words.

Qi Qingsong breaking through their defense earlier and charging straight at Su Chiming was still a lapse on their part, though Su Chiming remained unharmed.

"I'll leave the rest to you," Yaoguang said.

Leng Jun nodded. After the meal, Yaoguang did not return to Yuyuan Estate. Instead, he had Lei Yun drive him directly to a private teahouse.

This teahouse belonged to the Zhang family. Zhang Tianji was already waiting there. With him was an elderly man who appeared to be around sixty, with white hair and a youthful complexion.

The moment Yaoguang entered the private room, he sensed something unusual about the old man's qi and blood. But it was not the abnormality of a daemon. Rather, it was a form of qi-and-blood power distinct from that of a grandmaster.

Although this qi-and-blood force had clearly declined with age, if it were fully unleashed, the power it could display would be something no grandmaster could withstand. Understanding it was a realm beyond his current strength, Yaoguang made his judgment immediately.

"A martial paragon?" he said.

"Little Zhang told me you were extraordinary as well as extremely sharp. It seems like he wasn't exaggerating." The old man chuckled. "But although I underwent blood renewal and marrow cleansing, I'm still advanced in years. My qi and blood are both in decline. I can't compare to young people like you, rising like the morning sun, brimming with vitality. I can only barely contribute from the logistics side of the World-Saving Society."

Yaoguang looked at the old man. On the surface, Dayu officially had four martial paragons. Two from the royal family, one from the military, and one from the Lyu family. But this old man was clearly none of them.

"I'm from Lihuo. My name is Zong Yan. You've probably never heard of me." The old man seemed to see through Yaoguang's thoughts and smiled as he introduced himself.

Lihuo lay west of Dayu, with the White Tower Federation between them. It was a country of twenty million people, without a standing army, and its national defense was handled by the Crimson Star Empire.

"I've come this time to sincerely invite you to join our World-Saving Society. With your innate talent, having reached the grandmaster tier at nineteen and being as strong as you are, we of the World-Saving Society are confident we can help you become a martial paragon before you turn thirty," Zong Yan said.

Yaoguang nodded. "There's no rush. At the very least, I need to know the nature of the World-Saving Society first."

"The nature..." Zong Yan pondered for a moment and glanced at Zhang Tianji.

Zhang Tianji quickly left the private room and personally stood guard outside. Only then did Zong Yan take out a small device of unknown function.

After activating it, he said, "At its core, the World-Saving Society is an organization jointly established by various nations of Central Continent, dedicated to cultivating powerful martial artists to counter the Crimson Star Empire's domineering control over the martial world of our countries."

"The Crimson Star Empire?" Yaoguang's expression shifted slightly.

Whether it was Lihuo or the White Tower Federation, both were, in a sense, vassal nations of the Crimson Star Empire. The empire even had military bases within Dayu.

Among Dayu's populace, there was a half-joking saying that people were divided into three classes: first-class Crimson Star citizens, second-class royals, and third-class aristocratic families. As for those below the aristocratic families, they were mere cattle and horses.

Now, hearing a martial paragon from Lihuo describe the World-Saving Society in this way, was this an act of rebellion?

"You've pledged yourselves to the Snowdragon Empire?" Yaoguang suddenly asked.

"Not at all. The World-Saving Society is simply the World-Saving Society. It represents the martial circles of the nations of Central Continent and has nothing to do with the Snowdagon Empire," Zong Yan said. "After all, in the Snowdragon Empire's eyes, the forces behind us would likely all be lumped into the Crimson Star Empire anyway. Even if we wanted to defect to the Snowdragon Empire, and even if they accepted us to take advantage of our strength, we would inevitably be purged afterward."

He sighed. "We only want to reclaim the interests that originally belonged to us from the Crimson Star Empire."

"So the World-Saving Society isn't a purely civilian organization?" Yaoguang asked.

"Not entirely," Zong Yan replied. "The World-Saving Society is very strong. Behind it stands the full support of various royal families and aristocratic families..."

He paused slightly. "I mean the truly top-tier aristocratic families that still wield immense influence, such as the Lyu family and the Jiang family in Dayu."

"Royal families and aristocratic families..." Yaoguang nodded. "In that case, the World-Saving Society's intelligence network must be formidable?"

Zong Yan smiled. "I wouldn't say we're omniscient about every major event across Central Continent, but having eyes and ears throughout a city with a population of over a million is well within our capabilities. Even across the other four continents, we possess sufficient intelligence-gathering ability."

Hearing this, Yaoguang finally asked the question he most wanted answered from this contact with the World-Saving Society. "Then can the World-Saving Society tell me exactly what this is?"

He directly placed the file on Daemons in front of Zong Yan.