The medallion dropped soundlessly into the snow, and Tan Fei's relentless barrage ground to a bizarre halt.
Staring fixedly at the token on the ground as if seeing a ghost, his expression shifted erratically.
Exhaling heavily, Lian Youming glanced down and realized that the medallion was the very one he had stripped from the corpse in the Mount Zhongnan cavern. It had supposedly belonged to some deputy commander of the Zhan Ganchu. He had carried it, along with a few archer rings and normal rings, tucked against his body simply hoping to pawn them for cash; he had never expected it to slip free in the heat of combat.
The damned thing seemed to be solid gold, too.
Fist and palm clashed in midair. In the instant they drew close, Tan Fei's face morphed through a dozen emotions, his gaze turning suspicious and shaken. In an undertone, he rasped, "Brat, which banner's nobility do you belong to?"
"Huh?"
Lian Youming was about to strike again, but the question made his brow furrow.
What kind of nonsense was this bastard spouting?
Which banner's nobility?
Why did that phrase ring a bell?
Eight Banners nobility?
He suddenly recalled the old master from Baji mentioning that Tan Fei's ancestors had been Eight Banners nobility.
The two broke apart upon contact. Taking advantage of the momentum, Lian Youming dropped down from the wall. Catching his breath, he ripped off his torn shirt with one hand.
Tan Fei narrowed his sharp eyes. "You don't know? Has your branch been wandering in exile? What is engraved on the reverse of that medallion? Do you still remember what we are meant to do?"
"Huh?"
Thoughts raced through Lian Youming's mind. He remembered the reverse side read 'Deputy Commander of the Shangyu Beiyongchu.' For Tan Fei to recognize it at a glance meant he had surely seen similar items before.
Did this old bastard harbor some hidden identity?
Lian Youming wiped the blood from his torso with the shirt, then planted his foot directly on the gold medallion. "Sorry to disappoint, but you've got the wrong guy. This young master was born under the spring breeze and raised beneath the red flag! Even dogs wouldn't care for this garbage!"
He ground his sole into it as he spoke.
Tan Fei's pupils contracted. Staring at the medallion crushed beneath his opponent's foot, his cheeks twitched uncontrollably. His glare turned venomous, dark enough to wring water from.
The snow fell heavier still.
Goose-feather flakes blotted out the sky, and howling winds whipped through the air, stirring the murderous intent hanging between heaven and earth.
Biting frost stung Lian Youming's scalding chest. Amid the swirling flurry of flakes, his pupils shrank—the space before him was suddenly empty. Tan Fei had vanished.
In the next instant, a mass of black shadow swooped from the flank like an overcast storm cloud, kicking up layers of leg shadows from all directions.
A savage glint flashed in Lian Youming's eyes. He darted forward several paces, and just as Tan Fei closed in, he kicked off the brick wall and vaulted backward, drawing out a flexible whip.
The whip was nothing other than the shirt he had just stripped off. Wrought tight by his inner force, it snapped taut as a rope, coiling around the sweeping cloak in midair.
The fur cloak's momentum instantly stalled. Seizing the opening, Lian Youming thrust out his other hand and clamped down on the mink mantle.
Yet what followed on its heels was an onslaught fierce as a tempest.
Lian Youming seemed prepared. Contracting his tongue and throat, he drew his inner breath down into his abdomen, activating Toad Fishing Skill.
Tan Fei unleashed fists and kicks in tandem, cleaving wind and sundering snow. The blows rained down on Lian Youming with a barrage of dull, heavy thuds.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Lian Youming swayed, yet his center of gravity never wavered. The muscles across his chest vibrated in a cadence invisible to the naked eye, continually shaking off the invading force—the hallmark of Golden Bell Shield. Furthermore, beneath his skin, ripples surged as his inner breath billowed, the unmistakable manifestation of Toad Fishing Skill neutralizing external impacts.
These ripples were the extraordinary force generated by the surging breath. Washing through sinew, bone, and flesh, it could temper and fortify his frame while dispersing incoming kinetic force. Once this extraordinary force could ripple through every bone and scour every channel of his four limbs and hundred bones, the art would reach grand completion.
At present, he could only apply it to a small patch of his upper torso.
Enduring several savage blows, blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. Clamping one hand onto the cloak, he twisted his arm—his right arm appearing to swell a full circle thicker. He dragged the cloak toward his chest while curling his other hand into a loose fist, glaring with vicious fury as he smashed it ruthlessly toward the figure beneath the mantle.
At the mouth of the short street, the peasant uncle squinted against the wind and snow, clicking his tongue in marvel. "Holy smoke! Not only did this kid get Toad Fishing Skill, but he also seems to have trained in hard external conditioning! No wonder his build is so monstrous! Combining the internal and external, he's basically built himself a tortoise shell!"
Yet the moment he saw Lian Youming seize the cloak, the peasant uncle's expression darkened into dismay. "Damn it! Tan's real skill isn't in that coat! The boy walked into a trap!"
The other onlookers narrowed their eyes, holding their breath in suspense.
In truth, the instant Lian Youming gripped the cloak and yanked, his heart skipped a beat.
Whatever material the mantle was crafted from, it was remarkably tough—uncuttable and tear-resistant.
With disaster hanging by a thread, there was no room for second thoughts. He could only drive his fist forward to meet the enemy.
Yet Tan Fei seemed to have anticipated this very move. Riding the pulling momentum, he let out a sinister grin, kicked off with one foot, and vaulted into the air. Dodging the oncoming punch, he slipped the cloak entirely off his shoulders, swirling it in a wide arc. With a single wrap and bind, he bundled Lian Youming's upper body tightly, shrouding his head inside as well.
"It's over."
A collective sigh rippled through the spectators.
"Brat, let me send you on your way!"
Seeing Lian Youming with arms pinned and head covered, the murderous intent in Tan Fei's eyes erupted. A low, strange rumble like a bull's bellow rose from his chest and abdomen. Across his bare torso, veins and sinews bulged outward beneath the skin—another manifestation of extraordinary force.
His inner force detonated without hesitation. Letting out a shrill shriek, Tan Fei gripped the cloak with one hand while the other dropped from midair like a hawk swooping on a hare, pouncing toward the retreating youth.
He did not employ ordinary fists or kicks. Instead, he clamped down on Lian Youming's waist and abdomen in an eagle-seizing stance. The talon lunged out, sinews exposed, blood vessels bursting with dark, purplish-green vigor. Where his finger force landed, it hooked into bone and clawed through the gaps between ribs.
It was like striking a snake's vital seven-inch mark. Even Lian Youming could not suppress a muffled grunt, his sturdy frame sagging down an inch.
With his grip secured, Tan Fei twisted and levered with his waist, unleashing enough force to overturn a thousand jin. He hoisted Lian Youming's burly body straight into midair, flinging him off his feet.
Watching Lian Youming get flipped airborne, even the grey-browed elder of the Baji sect could not help but sigh softly.
It appeared Tan Fei intended to batter the youth to death.
In Chinese wrestling, grappling merged seamlessly with striking. Once both feet left the ground, survival was nearly impossible—to say nothing of the fact that Lian Youming was hooded by the cloak with both arms bound, waiting for the slaughter like a lamb.
A fatal catastrophe had arrived!
Xie Ruomei's face turned deathly pale, blood welling where her teeth bit through her lip.
Amid the storm, the moment Lian Youming became airborne, Tan Fei moved with lightning steps. His hands shifted smoothly—one still clutching the soft ribs, the other supporting a shoulder. Hoisting him high overhead, he hurled him violently toward a nearby stone lion.
Such an impact would surely shatter every bone and rupture the internal organs.
Yet in the howling, violent gale, the grotesque smirk on Tan Fei's face froze.
His pupils twitched as if encountering something incomprehensible. The taut figure wrapped within the beast-hide mantle seemed to shrink a circle smaller, and a scalp-numbing rasp echoed from beneath the fur.
It was the sound of bones grinding against one another.
Almost simultaneously, a broad hand stained with streaks of crimson slipped free from the cloak's bindings, thrusting out with vicious precision.
That hand, along with the entire arm, was contracting its muscles inward. What had seemed thick and muscular shrank in an instant, looking slender and collapsed.
Yet despite its slender appearance, it was packed tight as iron. Driving that vicious claw forward, it struck out savagely before Tan Fei's terrified, shaken gaze.
This was no bizarre sorcery, but the profound application of Golden Bell Shield's muscle contraction.
In a split second, the world before Tan Fei turned a blinding crimson. Only when droplets of blood spattered across his cheek did an agonizing wave of delayed pain jolt him to his senses.
One of his eyes had been gouged blind.
Yet with his remaining eye staring wide, he did not cry out in agony. Instead, he channeled three parts more power into his grip, his gaze bloodshot and venomous, and slammed Lian Youming toward the stone lion with mad fury.
"Die!"
A shrill roar tore through the short street.
In rapid succession, a grim, expressionless head struggled free of the cloak.
Facing the looming stone lion, Lian Youming gritted his teeth, contracting his musculature to slip the last restraints. He shoved a palm into Tan Fei's chest, throwing him back, then arched his waist. Drawing in a deep breath like a great whale swallowing the sea, his plummeting body halted in midair for a fraction of a breath. He grazed past the stone lion's head and slammed violently into the brick wall behind it.
Yet the crash brought no sound of splintering bone.
With a heavy bang, Lian Youming flipped around and landed cleanly, crouching steadily atop the stone lion's head. At the spot on his back that had hit the wall, several raised swellings of air surged beneath his flesh before swiftly dissipating.
Even though Toad Fishing Skill had absorbed the brunt of the impact, dark blood continuously dripped from the corner of Lian Youming's mouth, forming a viscous crimson thread. Clearly, he had sustained considerable injury.
"Heh heh!"
Yet he grinned, crouching like a stalking tiger, his teeth drenched in scarlet. Kicking off with both feet, he pounced toward the staggering Tan Fei.
Struck by Lian Youming's Cotton Palm, off-balance, and blinded in one eye, the man was primed for the kill.
Watching the figure hurtling toward him, Tan Fei retreated step by step, blood pooling in his vision.
Lian Youming curled the five fingers of his right hand into a loose grip. Snow and frost swirled into the hollow of his fist, ground to powder by the domineering gale of his strike.
Tan Fei forced his breath up, planting his feet firmly. He raised his hands in an eagle-seizing stance once more, adopting a posture to take the blow head-on.
The short street fell silent as the wind and snow swept past.
One man stood rooted like an old tree; the other bounded forward with arched back, driving a fist ahead.
In the blink of an eye, the two collided again.
"Ha!"
Tan Fei struck first, charging forward in a lunge. His claws ignored parrying or blocking, substituting offense for defense.
Yet just as the clash arrived, his solitary eye flew wide. A pair of indescribably dark, piercing eyes stared back at him through the white curtain of snow. In that brief instant of locking eyes, an eerie radiance seemed to swirl within them; a focused glare radiated an ominous, baleful aura that jolted his soul into momentary daze.
"Ah, a gaze strike—"
Within a fraction of a second, Tan Fei snapped back to his senses, his lone eye filled with terror as the words burst from his throat.
Before he could finish, a massive fist smashed through the snow curtain, hurtling toward his chest like a ten-thousand-jin hammer falling from the sky.
A single moment of distraction was a death sentence.
Tan Fei's eye nearly split at the corners. His face twisted as he frantically withdrew his hands, forced to cross them in a hasty block.
The tides of offense and defense had reversed.
Yet this punch was not as fierce and overbearing as anticipated.
Lian Youming's loosely curled fingers snapped tight, forming a phoenix-eye fist. Spreading force from a single focal point across the entire target, his back muscles twisted and knotted like the sprawling branches of a mighty tree rooted in his spine. The protruding knuckle pecked down sharply on Tan Fei's wrist.
In that breath, both of Tan Fei's arms went numb and stiff. His single eye quivered, his complexion turning ash-gray.
It was over.
Lian Youming's right hand drove through without losing momentum, piercing the gap between Tan Fei's crossed arms. He pressed lightly against the man's heart, shattering his balance, then hooked his fingers and tapped again with lightning speed.
At last, both figures froze.
A few seconds ticked by.
Thump!
Covered in snow, Tan Fei's rigid body collapsed, dropping to his knees as he vomited mouthfuls of blood.
Lian Youming stood before him with half-lidded eyes, looking down. In a soft whisper meant only for the two of them, he asked, "What connection do you have with those palace experts?"
Tan Fei struggled to lift his head, his single eye bloodshot. He let out a sinister, raspy chuckle. "You'll find out... Someone will come to avenge this blood feud."
Lian Youming nodded. "Good to know!"
With a ferocious sneer, he clamped his hand onto Tan Fei's face, hauled him up by the head, and spun around. Striding into the wind and snow, he hurled him with all his might toward the entrance of the Eagle Claw Sect.
Crash!
Above the front gate, the horizontal plaque inscribed with the characters 'Eagle Claw Sect' shattered on impact.
As the figure tumbled down from midair, the brutal battle finally came to an end.
Chapter 80