Chapter 9: Killshot

Lei Ao reacted quickly, but Yaoguang was still faster than him.

When Lei Ao’s right foot stomped toward the wrist that held Yaoguang’s sword, Yaoguang flicked his wrist. The thrusting blade rotated ninety degrees in an instant, allowing Yaoguang to swap to a reverse grip and shift from a horizontal thrust to a downward slash.

At the same moment, Lei Ao’s left foot slammed against the B-pillar, borrowing the rebound force to wrench himself backward. Yet before he could fully retreat, a cold flash of steel pierced straight through the shin of the leg he had just kicked out.

The downward stroke of the blade, paired with the momentum of Lei Ao’s backward retreat, instantly ripped open his lower right leg, causing blood to spray everywhere.

The agony of such a devastating wound twisted Lei Ao’s expression into something monstrous.

Yet, he forcibly endured the pain of half a torn-apart calf and smashed through the opposite car window with a low growl. Amid the explosion of shattered glass, he shot outside like a trapped dragon bursting from the sea.

"I'm going to kill you!" His ferocious roar rumbled like muffled thunder.

Yet almost the instant he escaped the cramped space and believed he had finally broken free from the positional disadvantage, Yaoguang also moved, aiming for the roof of the car.

He sprang forward, and the jin beneath his feet exploded. Like a spring, he shot up a full meter and a half, skimming across the roof as though clinging to its surface while he flew past.

Realizing his forward momentum was not enough as he began to drop onto the sedan’s roof, he freed his left hand and slammed it down hard, releasing a surge of jin.

The steel car roof dented under his palm, leaving a visible handprint and warping to the point that even those inside the car would have noticed the impact point.

Borrowing the recoil of that strike, Yaoguang’s falling body abruptly slid two meters forward, gliding past the car’s width.

When Lei Ao burst out of the vehicle, believing he could counterattack after breaking free, Yaoguang had already arrived overhead, trailing close behind like a predator on a hunt, suspended a meter above him.

"You!?" Lei Ao’s eyes widened.

But Yaoguang did not hesitate. His right hand drove the formless sword downward again, aiming straight for Lei Ao’s heart.

"Die!" Lei Ao growled. Some terrible force inside him seemed to awaken at high speed.

Just as the formless sword was about to stab into him, his right arm swept across with impossible speed. At the last split-second, he seized the blade itself.

No! It's not his right hand!

Lei Ao's entire arm had already warped, thickened nearly twice its normal size, more like the claw of a daemon than the limb of a human. Even the sharp edge of the formless sword could not immediately carve through the enlarged, scale-coated arm.

But right then, Yaoguang’s internal organs vibrated together. The jin across his entire body condensed into a single crushing mass, pouring down his arm like the weight of a mountain.

It was core jin, the one possessed only by martial paragons who had refined their breath into a core and begun breaking into the nonhuman realm!

Terror flashed across Lei Ao’s eyes before a violent surge of jin broke open his clawed grip on the formless sword. The sharp blade tore through muscle, shattered ribs, and speared through his heart.

At that same moment, both bodies lost their momentum. They crashed together into a puddle on the ground, causing water to explode outward in a violent spray.

Even with a sword through his heart, Lei Ao’s killing instinct erupted. His roar turned savage as he trembled with seemingly endless strength.

But Yaoguang, despite his body being much lighter, managed to use a restraining technique to pin Lei Ao completely. His knee locked down on Lei Ao’s thigh, denying his muscles any room to stretch out.

At the same time, Yaoguang’s left hand rose the instant they hit the ground. It dropped like lightning, slamming hard onto the hilt of the formless sword still gripped by his right.

Although the blade had already pierced the heart, Lei Ao still seemed intent on using his daemon claw to tear it out. But under the crushing strike from Yaoguang’s left hand, the formless sword drove all the way through his heart, punched out his back, and stabbed deep into the earth beneath him.

Yaoguang’s left hand immediately joined his right, gripping the hilt and twisting with all of his force.

Pssch!

Blood sprayed out of the wound, and

Lei Ao’s violent thrashing, which had nearly flung Yaoguang off of him, abruptly stopped.

His half-daemonified body lost all strength. Resistance faded, and a heavy silence fell upon the scene.

Daemons could possess people and daemonify their bodies, granting the possessed body tremendous physical strength.

But as long as they remained in a human-like form, they would be forced to have the same weaknesses as humans.

Splurt!

Yaoguang yanked the formless sword free from Lei Ao’s shredded heart. Without the slightest pause, he stabbed once more, piercing straight through the skull.

This time, the martial master wasn't playing dead like Xia Li in an attempt to counter, because he was already dead beyond any possibility of revival.

Yaoguang exhaled slowly as sweat seeped from every pore.

He rose to his feet with his sword in hand and turned around.

Behind him, Ah Bao, the driver, finally snapped out of the shock brought by the sudden change.

The clash between the two might have sounded slow when described, yet in reality it had happened with lightning speed.

From the moment Yaoguang exploded into motion, pierced Lei Ao’s shin, ripped it open, stabbed into his torso, and ground apart his heart, the entire sequence had taken no more than three seconds.

This was how top-tier martial artists fought, without any fancy gestures. Life and death happened in an instant.

Under such circumstances, even if Ah Bao possessed considerable skill and held a level 3 martial artist title, he only reacted after the dust had settled.

The moment he realized the ferocity Yaoguang displayed was far beyond anything he could withstand, the loyal driver who had looked completely devoted to Lei Ao retreated without hesitation. His decisiveness was unbelievable.

He knew very well that only by summoning all of Lei Ao's men immediately and attacking together would there be any hope of avenging Lei Ao. If he faced this murderous monster alone, he would certainly die.

Whoosh!

A faint whistling sound brushed past Ah Bao’s ear the moment he started sprinting for his life.

It's the sound of a sharp object cutting through the wind.

This thought flickered across his mind.

A heartbeat later, a crushing force slammed into him. His posture pitched forward uncontrollably.

As he stumbled ahead, he vaguely caught sight of something like a sword, nailed into the wall in front of him. Cement dust scattered, and the hilt vibrated.

There's blood on the blade, and that blood...

Ah Bao lowered his head slightly.

Only then did he realize that during that heavy impact, a bloody hole had been punched clean through his chest.

That sword just now...

Ah Bao thought.

"I..." He opened his mouth, wanting to speak.

But all his body could manage was to take a few more steps under its own inertia before losing all balance and crashing hard onto the ground.

Those few movements had drained all remaining strength from him.

Even the act of keeping his thoughts coherent had become impossible.

In the end, his eyes shut as life faded from him.

At the final moment before his consciousness sank completely into darkness, he vaguely heard a voice. "Shanlong’s number one? Nothing special."