Think You're the Only One with Cheats?

A sudden blare of a horn cut through the air. No one could understand what it was bellowing, but everyone could tell it had to be a stream of foul curses. Yet no one cared anymore about what it was cursing. A sound like something pulled straight from a nightmare echoed in Lou Feng's ears once more. *Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat—* It was as if the shadow of that manure-cart of the past had returned alongside that rhythmic, high-pitched roar, suffocating Lou Feng and plunging him back under the pall of his former humiliation. Only this time, what surged toward him was no longer an unspeakable tide, but a terrifying brilliance blinding enough to rival exploding stars. These were not merely traditional steel-core bullets; mixed among them were numerous mercury rounds enchanted by Xiao An's sword qi, bursting into dazzling flashes the instant they cleared the barrel. As Little Niuma swerved frantically from side to side, countless rounds erupted from the muzzle in an instant, nearly forming a continuous sheet of fire that swept forward with tyrannical force. Four hundred years later, this desolate, shattered hall was once again battered by a tempest of wind and rain, cracking and crumbling under the barrage. In desperate haste, Lou Feng instinctively threw up a spiritus shield. Yet in the next breath, he discovered what it felt like to be a mouthy brat getting utterly steamrolled by an unstoppable brute. His eyes rolled back from the sheer strain; his abilities overloaded, and the sheer volume of firepower nearly overwhelmed him to the point of collapse. As flimsy as the spiritus shield was, it bought him a fleeting heartbeat. A spark of light flared from the alchemical gear on his wrist. An Ice-Iron Wall erupted from the ground once more, standing firm as an iron rampart. Thunderous concussions rang out incessantly as pale cracks spiderwebbed across its surface in rapid succession. At least it held... Before Lou Feng's cold sweat could even drip, just as he instinctively began to exhale in relief, he abruptly realized—that damn rustbucket could move! A roar skirted the perimeter. Amid brazen honking, Little Niuma tore across the hall, unleashing torrential firepower. After carving deep furrows into the Ice-Iron Wall, the sweeping machine gun bypassed the barrier entirely alongside the charging motorized tricycle, pouring fire without restraint. Blood convulsed; light and flames flickered violently. Reacting fastest, Slan roared and drew his blade. His face paled instantly, looking as though he had suffered massive blood loss, his entire frame shriveling like a skeleton. Yet from within the rising crimson light, a towering silhouette surged upward, drawing a blade over ten meters long that crashed down with a deafening boom. It nearly sheared Little Niuma clean in two. Terrified, the little tricycle sped up even further, darting around like a headless fly while dragging lethal firepower that spelled death on the slightest graze. It was like a seal frantically spraying liquid panic under the pursuit of an orca... which only made it that much more of a nightmare to deal with! Roaring in fury, Slan accelerated abruptly, bursting from the bloodlight to charge head-on into the machine gun's savage sweep. Closing the distance, the brutal barrage—capable of tearing through fortifications and the soldiers behind them alike—slammed into him, only to be turned aside by the silver light rising from the shield on his arm. The silver light swayed like a battered lotus in a downpour, yet the charging Knight of Homecoming pressed forward inch by inch. When he was just tens of meters away, he hurled the scimitar from his grip with a roar. The spinning blade let out a shrill shriek, cleaving head-on through the heavy machine gun's spray. It shattered the red-hot gun to pieces, triggered an explosion, and drove forward with unstoppable momentum. Yet at that exact instant, a faint ripple of spiritus seemed to surface. The bizarre contraption—a mutant cross between a motorized tricycle and a motorcycle—visibly blurred for a fraction of a second. Shadow-meld! Even shifting into spiritus shadow could not halt a savage strike originating from the Swarm. In an instant, it collapsed, burst, and scattered like liquid... Strangely, another faint ripple of spiritus emerged. Something resembling a human head flickered into view for a split second, its lips parting silently to utter a word. Then, an invisible gravity manifested. The shattered, scattered shadows streamed back like liquid, converging and reforming, and the speeding tricycle shot out from within. Completely unharmed! Even Little Niuma had no idea what had happened. It blinked in dazed confusion, flashing its high beams. Only the Prophet in the basket slowly shut his eyes, as though sinking back into slumber. It was only then that Slan heard... ...a piercing shriek from behind him. It was a torrential, surging deluge of sword qi! Fast—unbearably fast—even if the opening had lasted only an instant. In that infinitely slowed stretch of time, the moment Xiao An caught the brief disarray among the Knights of Homecoming and Slan's charge, his figure had vanished from where he stood. In his place was a howling torrent surging forward. "With this quarry, I offer sacrifice to the White Stag." Amid the soft whisper, the sword qi across hundreds and thousands of iron slips converged, almost dissolving and swallowing him entirely. Boundless razor-sharp light focused into a single beam, shooting straight ahead. He hurled himself forward as a blade! This was no longer the technique recorded in the Manual of Pitch-Pot Rites, but the supreme esoteric scripture that eclipsed it: the Archery Rites! Taking the body as a blade, plunging onward without retreat, it bore only a single, simple name— 【Dire】! Ancient texts once recorded that a day and a night comprise thirty xuyu, one xuyu comprises twenty luoyu, one luoyu comprises twenty finger-snaps, one finger-snap comprises twenty instants... And an instant was a single thought. At this moment, it took merely a single thought. Pale sword qi sped forward, piercing through ranks, smashing through every defense, tearing apart all opposition, dyed a dazzling, luminous scarlet by the blood of foes and his own. Lunging, drifting, and dodging without a shred of inertia, it left behind only a brilliant trail shifting from white to crimson. Everything standing in its path was sliced to ribbons! The farther forward it pressed, the more grueling it became. Breaking straight through the blood-flames and the intercepting Knights of Homecoming, the slender, brilliant edge of sword qi gradually wore down. Yet the shorter it became, the brighter the fierce light nurtured within it burned. At last, when the speeding sword qi ground to a halt amid the entangling blood-flames, Xiao An was soaked scarlet in blood, a spear driven through his chest to pin him to the floor. Yet from his hand, a minute point of sharp light, barely perceptible to the naked eye, had already slipped free. It flew toward the paralyzed Lou Feng. Ice-Iron Wall, repulsion fields, spiritus shields—all were crushed, pierced, and torn apart until the Chrono-Sand crystals on Lou Feng's wrist shattered one after another. Before the spiritus avatar could even fully manifest, it was shredded by the invisible vortex, half its body minced away. Yet its one remaining hand blocked firmly before Lou Feng, clutching that worn-down, barely discernible point of cold glint with a death grip. The cold glint dispersed. Drenched in cold sweat, Lou Feng slumped on the ground, pale and gasping for breath, barely able to speak. He wanted to laugh by reflex, but then felt a prickling itch at his throat. When he raised his hand, he realized a thin line of blood was spreading across his neck... his fingertips came away stained with a glaring, piercing crimson! He had been a hair's breadth from decapitation! Never had he come so close to death. He had nearly been swallowed by that darkness... "K-Kill them!" he roared at the top of his lungs, his voice hoarse with fury. Yet in the dead silence, not a soul moved. They stared dumbly at him—or more precisely, at the seamless, smooth wall behind him, where a hairline fissure had silently appeared... and at the gun barrel protruding from behind it. Red-hot. Pressing against his scalp, it hissed against flesh and hair. Lou Feng's pupils dilated rapidly, trembling uncontrollably. "Ji Jue!" A strangled sound tore from his throat. He spun around, spiritus flaring from the alchemical gear on his wrist to unleash boundless flames that would incinerate the enemy before him to ash... but the scene he anticipated never came to pass. The bracelet carved with flames flickered once and died, completely unresponsive. Not just the bracelet. Every piece of alchemical equipment had gone entirely dormant! Under the dim light cast by the levitating puzzle ball hovering over Ji Jue's shoulder, even abilities and matrices seemed frozen, stripped of all reaction. Temporary workshop, deployed! Within a domain of three paces, Spiritus Countermeasure, Matrix Suppression, and Ability Silence—all three modular sequences were fully engaged! "Think you're the only one with damn cheats?!" Ji Jue swung his arm, delivering a merciless slap across Lou Feng's face that spun him halfway through the air before dumping him back onto the floor. Then, he drove the stock of his weapon down into him with a backhanded thrust. "Think you're the only one with a damn master?!" "Just because I didn't toggle mine on, you thought you could keep dinging those cheats forever, huh?!" "'Hand over Non-Offensive' my ass!" "Why don't you hand over your damn mother instead?!" He battered, trampled, and pummeled him without mercy until Slan roared, "Stop!" *Bang!* The shotgun roared. The round tore into the floor right past Lou Feng's cheek, carving a bloody gouge across his skin. "Keep your voice down. You're scaring me." Ji Jue looked up impassively at him, and then toward Xiao An, who was pinned to the floor by the spear beside him. Slan's blade rested against Xiao An's neck, pressing in just enough to draw a bead of blood. Without hesitation, Ji Jue pulled the trigger again, aiming straight for Lou Feng's right hand. Amid the spray of blood and Lou Feng's agonizing shriek, Slan's face twitched, and his blade returned to its original position. He had never imagined that an entire squad of Knights of Homecoming—every one of them Rank 3 or above—along with himself, a Rank 5, and a heavily equipped, formidable employer, would be reduced to such a state. "Hand over the hostage, and I'll let you walk," Slan said. Ji Jue pulled the trigger again. The bullet grazed Lou Feng's scalp before burying itself into the floor. Amid the fresh screams, he said, "Cut the bullshit. Say something useful. "Drop your weapons. I'm counting to five. Otherwise, your boss can say goodbye to his left hand too. Five... four... three..." During the unpausing countdown, Slan's expression contorted. For a split second, he was sorely tempted to lop off an arm from this girlish brat beside him to teach the punk a lesson. Yet he didn't dare. Those completely placid eyes had been watching them the entire time, unyielding even when the blade was poised to sever his companion's neck. Black as a lightless ocean. Slan had seen eyes like that far too many times in the Mid-Continent, but he had never expected to encounter them again on an unknown youth from Yacheng. *Clatter!* At Slan's gesture, one knight dropped his spear and scimitar, followed shortly by a second... The weapons were tossed into Little Niuma's cargo bed. Before long, all six surviving knights had disarmed themselves. Only Slan remained, his grip tight on his blade, refusing to yield an inch. "Easy there, young man." Beside Slan, someone hauled a chest from the bloody water and tossed it over. The open chest was packed to the brim with all the spoils they had gathered along the way. "We traveled thousands of miles just for coin. We're only low-level hired hands—why make things hard for us? Everything is here. Release the boss and take your friend; we won't stand in your way." Ji Jue glanced at it and looked away, wholly unimpressed. "Not enough." "..." The corner of Slan's eye twitched again, and he nearly laughed in exasperation. "You don't care about this kid's life?" "I do. Of course I do. No need to harp on the stakes. But precisely because my friend was hurt and paid such a heavy price, this isn't enough." Ji Jue's hand on the trigger remained rock-steady. "You'd better understand where you stand. Don't test my patience." "Fine." Slan let out a cold sneer. "Two lives for one isn't enough? If you kill my employer, how do you plan to deal with the rest of us?" Ji Jue's answer was another fissure quietly opening behind him. "Get one thing straight: if I want to leave, none of you can stop me," Ji Jue reminded him coolly. "You can kill my friend, but your boss is dead. And not just your boss—you, your family, your friends. "Just a reminder: my teacher is a master, and the Security Bureau has my back. Even if the Lou family wants to retaliate, they can't touch me in Yacheng. But you're a different story. "The Security Bureau might let you off the hook, but I won't. "Ten years, twenty years, thirty years... no matter how long it takes, the moment I earn the title of master, the very first thing I'll do is post a bounty on your heads in the Wild Gathering..." He promised, "As long as I draw breath, it's to the death between us!"