The mountain wind howled like weeping ghosts, snapping countless tree branches and churning up snow from the forest floor. Mingled with the heavy flakes drifting from the night sky, it turned the world into a vast expanse of blinding white.
Walking alone through the blizzard, Qin Ming arrived at the base of the mountain where the mountain patrol team was stationed.
He decided to use the bow and arrows he had captured. Although it still felt like a "soft bow" in his grip, a Newborn's weapon was far superior to the iron-backed bow he had used before.
The fierce wind and snow beat relentlessly against his face, forcing him to narrow his eyes. He stripped off his thick warm clothing, strapped on armor, and threw on a thin outer garment over it.
He buried his own bow, arrows, and bundle inside a snow cave, weighed it down with heavy stones, and headed up the mountain carrying four iron spears taken from the mountain patrollers.
Qin Ming approached silently, steadily scaling the peak until he was only several dozen meters from the clearing.
Were it not for the roaring wind and heavy snow, the golden mastiff—massive as a ferocious tiger—would likely have caught a stranger's scent long before.
Even so, it seemed to sense something, pricking up ears densely patterned with golden markings.
Fire-glow shifted within one of the larger wooden cabins, casting the silhouettes of several men against the window. In this bitter cold, they were drinking wine and savoring steaming, richly scented yak meat from a copper pot over charcoal embers.
"The Fire Spring in the Blood Bamboo Forest is about to die out. It's the perfect time to deal with that spiritual creature. We need to make arrangements in advance..."
The words drifted over with the wind. Qin Ming wanted to keep listening; some members of the patrol team were eyeing a certain spiritual creature in the mountains to achieve a second Newborn transition.
Unfortunately, he could pry no further. The golden mastiff had already stepped out from its lean-to and turned its gaze straight toward him, parting its jaws to roar.
Aiming at the window, Qin Ming drew the bow against the most burly figure inside. Iron arrows pierced the night like bolts of lightning, whistling through the air as they all slammed into the wooden cabin.
A muffled grunt sounded from within, and every silhouette immediately dropped flat. An instant later, the cabin door and windows burst open. Several figures charged out holding tables and wooden door planks as shields before ducking behind large trees and boulders for cover, their sharp gazes scouring the dark for the hidden attacker.
The golden mastiff barked incessantly with formidable ferocity, its roars scattering the falling snow before it. Its massive body erupted with astonishing power as it bounded savagely toward Qin Ming's position.
Qin Ming ignored the mutated golden mastiff for the moment. The iron arrows rained down in a dense barrage, pouring solely toward one man—Fu Entao.
He paid no heed to the other mountain patrollers; only a second Newborn was truly dangerous. Wounding him would be far more meaningful than cutting down the others first.
Unfortunately, Fu Entao took only a single arrow, and the injury was slight. The custom-made armor he wore provided excellent protection, allowing the iron arrow to penetrate a mere half-inch into his flesh.
After that, Fu Entao swept his long saber through the air, snapping most of the incoming arrows. Using the trees as shields, he closed the distance rapidly.
Judging by the force behind the arrows, Fu Entao concluded that his opponent had not undergone a second Newborn transition and would not be difficult to handle.
It was not that Qin Ming lacked strength; rather, the patroller's rigid bow could not withstand the thousand jin of force he exerted, and in the end, it snapped right in his hands.
The mutated mastiff, covered in black and gold markings, reached him and leaped into the air. It pounced at Qin Ming, white steam venting from its bloody maw, its gleaming white fangs razor-sharp as its roar shook the mountain forest.
Yet its massive body suddenly stiffened mid-leap and its roar cut off abruptly. An iron spear flew in with terrifying speed, piercing clean through its skull in a burst of blood, and the ferocious gleam in its eyes faded in an instant.
There was no denying this was a formidable mutated creature capable of troubling ordinary Newborns, yet Qin Ming had dispatched it with a single hurled spear—an instant kill!
With a heavy thud, it crashed to the ground five meters in front of Qin Ming.
In the distance, seeing the golden mastiff's corpse crash down, Feng Yi'an shouted in anguish, "Jinzi!"
A surge of fury rose in Qin Ming's heart. To men like this, the lives of villagers outside the mountain meant less than a vicious hound, yet here he was crying out in dismay over a dog.
Whipping his right arm forward with immense force, he threw another iron spear. Defying the wind and snow, it tore through the air with an intimidating shriek, hurtling toward Feng Yi'an.
The bearded Feng Yi'an was a patroller on the verge of a second Newborn transition. His reflexes were sharp; his burly frame shifted swiftly sideways, and he swung his long saber in a display of defiance, hacking at the flying spear as it reached him.
Accompanied by a piercing clash of metal and a shower of sparks, Feng Yi'an felt his entire arm go numb. His right hand trembled faintly, nearly losing its grip on the hilt.
Terror gripped his heart. Just how much force was behind that throw? The spear grazed past his body and slammed into a wooden cabin, instantly shattering the thick door plank.
By now, the nearly two-meter-tall Fu Entao was pounding across the snow, kicking up great white plumes beneath his feet. Moving with shocking speed, he had closed to within ten meters of Qin Ming.
Waiting for him was one of the patrol team's custom iron spears, darting through the night like a venomous flood dragon straight at him.
As a second Newborn, Fu Entao possessed extraordinarily keen senses, clearly tracking the spear's trajectory.
Unwilling to waste a shred of effort, he merely tilted his tall frame slightly to slip past it with ease. Without pausing for a fraction of a second, he charged toward his opponent wrapped in a howling gust.
He dodged the cold-gleaming iron spear, but another patroller was charging close behind him, trailing a dozen meters back—and made for a perfect second target.
This was intentional on Qin Ming's part. If Fu Entao parried it, so be it; but if he dodged, the hurled spear would strike the man right behind him.
The trailing patroller failed to evade in time. The distance was simply too short, and Fu Entao had blocked his line of sight a moment before.
"Ahhh..." A shrill scream tore from his throat as the flying spear impaled his chest. Even his body armor could not withstand the blow; it shattered on impact, fragments scattering through the air.
Yet the impact deflected the spear's flight path.
Veering slightly off course, the spear struck with a heavy thud, pinning the patroller to a tree trunk as thick as a bucket. Blood ran down the shaft, staining the snow scarlet.
He struggled in agonizing pain, clearly beyond saving.
Behind them, chills ran down the spines of Feng Yi'an and Shao Chengfeng. It felt as though they themselves had been pinned to that massive tree, and both involuntarily took several steps back.
Fu Entao knew what had happened behind him. His face hardened. To him, ten meters was a distance crossed in a single leap.
His curly black hair whipped back in the freezing wind, and his beast-hide cloak snapped loudly. Standing two meters tall, the long saber in his hands was custom-forged—broader and far sharper. He brought it down in a vertical chop with the fierce momentum to split a mountain!
Still as a boulder when at rest, Qin Ming moved like thunder once he sprang into action—swift and violent. Shifting slightly to the side, he avoided the terrifying blade edge and used the final iron spear gripped in his left hand to strike the side of the saber, knocking it off course.
A flicker of surprise ran through Fu Entao's mind. He realized this was not someone he could crush at will; his opponent must have achieved a second limit break.
He bore down with his saber, intending to sweep aside the spear and resume his aggressive slash, but met formidable resistance.
Bracing his iron spear against the saber's flat, Qin Ming struck and scraped against it in a shower of sparks, keeping the long saber away from his body. At the same time, he surged forward, slashing his wood-chopping knife toward his opponent's wide-open chest.
Fu Entao's pupils contracted. His heavy saber had failed to press the spear back, making him feel, for the first time, that he was facing a truly troublesome, potent adversary.
Wearing a black-gold vambrace engraved with mountain demon motifs on his left arm, he raised it swiftly to block the wood-chopping knife that gleamed like a clear mountain spring, producing a jarring metallic screech.
Using the momentum, Fu Entao retreated swiftly like wind and thunder, kicking up snow from the ground and escaping the slightly disadvantaged position from their initial clash.
Shaking his faintly numb left arm, he glanced down. A crack had appeared on the vambrace; it had nearly been cleaved through. It wasn't that his opponent's blade was overly sharp, but rather that the overwhelming force had cracked it.
Having misjudged the force behind the arrows, he had originally intended to swiftly kill the sniper, only to be checked right from the start. He began examining the figure before him with serious scrutiny.
Qin Ming glanced at his wood-chopping knife. The blade was damaged, showing a noticeable notch. Although forged from refined iron, it was no match for the patrol team's weapons and armor.
He was well aware that his strength surpassed his opponent's, but his speed fell somewhat short. A second Newborn transition focused on flexibility and speed. While his opponent still mistook him for a peer in the same realm, he needed to fight in close quarters to neutralize the man's ability to strike and disengage at will.
"Who are you, and why are you targeting us?" Fu Entao demanded. Earlier, seeing how youthful his opponent looked, he had taken him for a hot-headed boy and planned to cripple him before interrogating him about his background.
Confronted with his opponent's formidable strength, he calmed down and treated him as an equal—even with considerable wariness. After all, the youth was remarkably young. Could he be a noble scion from Chixia City? Yet his attire looked nothing like it.
Qin Ming did not answer. He pointed the iron spear forward in his left hand and raised the wood-chopping knife slightly in his right, advancing step by step with cool composure. Though young in appearance, he radiated an imposing presence.
Fu Entao frowned, his doubts about the youth's identity deepening.
As Qin Ming stepped out from the shadowy woods and neared the Fire Spring area, Feng Yi'an and Shao Chengfeng recognized him.
The silhouette had looked familiar to them earlier, but now illuminated by the fiery glow, his face emerged clearly. They were completely dumbfounded.
"You're... Qin Ming from Twin Trees Village?!" Feng Yi'an gasped in disbelief. He had seen this youth several times. Hadn't he completed his Newborn transition only recently?
Qin Ming gave no reply. He closed in with steady steps, then abruptly surged forward. His spear thrust out like an icy serpent turning into a dragon across the snowfields, tearing through the wind and snow with a terrifying shriek that blew the falling flakes apart and blasted the snow beneath his feet into the air.
"Surround him! Don't let him escape! I want him alive!" Fu Entao barked as he swung his saber.
His gaze flashed like cold lightning, projecting immense confidence—chiefly to keep Feng Yi'an and Shao Chengfeng from shrinking back in fear and to bolster their courage.
"Surround him together and finish him off quickly," shouted a stout mountain patroller as he edged closer with his saber raised. He had no intention of charging in recklessly; he merely wanted to exert psychological pressure on Qin Ming from nearby.
Seeing this, Feng Yi'an and Shao Chengfeng joined in the encirclement, guarding vital angles and poising themselves for an ambush, subtly shifting the battle in their favor.
The clash between the two combatants in the center was terrifying. The afterimages of the iron spear danced like dragons and serpents through the air, while the flashing blade light struck like lightning on a stormy night, rapidly expanding the battlefield.
The faces of Feng Yi'an and Shao Chengfeng turned pale. That youth named Qin Ming was actually this dominant—could the team leader truly overpower him?
Qin Ming and Fu Entao battled their way from near the Fire Spring back into the dense forest, forcing the three onlookers to follow closely and maintain their cautious cordon.
Wherever the two charged through the woods, previously untouched trees snapped and crackled, sending showers of branches falling into the snow while massive trunks toppled with resounding crashes.
Suddenly, from the shadows of the dense woods, a silver-white silhouette leaped down from a large tree, seeking to ambush Qin Ming.
Qin Ming was trading blows with Fu Entao, his back turned to that direction. The patrol team's captive snow ape launched an abrupt assault from above, an attack nearly impossible to guard against.
A mutated beast whose claws could tear wild beasts apart, it struck with savage malice, clawing toward Qin Ming's neck with blistering speed.
Qin Ming had long known a snow ape lurked here. After climbing the mountain, he had secretly pinpointed its position, remaining vigilant against every potential threat.
Moving as if wind carried his feet, he dodged the snow ape's pounce with extraordinary agility. At the same time, he slashed backhand into midair. With a sickening slice, his wood-chopping knife cleaved the ferocious snow ape clean in two at the waist!
Ape blood sprayed everywhere. With a dying wail, the two halves of its body tumbled into the snow one after the other, soon lying still in death.
Chapter 15