Leave It to Me

*Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom—* In the blink of an eye, another fierce exchange of blows roared out. Once the crimson glow receded completely, Huang Dahu's shattered body lay sprawled face-up on the ground. His eyes were hollow, and his once majestic tiger face now wore a melancholic expression. A gaping hole had been blasted through his chest, gashes covered his limbs, and a pool of blood beneath him spread out, slowly coating the ground. "In the end, I still couldn't do it..." he mumbled. "I still couldn't avenge you all." "You burned, killed, and looted in human cities, committing several massacres that wiped out whole families. Dying in a city isn't something you can complain about, is it? You're merely paying the price for the people you killed." Zhao Xing'er stowed her bronze staff and looked down at him coldly. "Accept your defeat." "Ahhh—!" Huang Dahu wailed in agony. "The glory of our Laotudingzigou tiger demons could not flourish in my hands after all! To never see our family at the height of its prosperity... I can't accept this!" With that howl, the divine spark gradually faded from his eyes. Huang Dahu, a great demon of the underworld, charred all over, his meridians shattered, covered in wounds, and eyes full of hatred, died just like that amidst his unwilling howls... He passed away very peacefully. …… Right when Zhao Xing'er decided the battle with a single staff strike, Yue Wen was not idling either. Just after he shoved Zhao Xing'er forward, the roe deer brothers had pursued him. Glaring with crimson eyes, the two roe deer charged headlong without regard for anything else, their flesh as hard as steel and their strength terrifyingly immense. As their opponent, he truly felt immense pressure. Yue Wen used the footwork of Wandering Dragon Freehand to maneuver for a few paces. Seeing that he was pinched from both sides and lacking room to dodge, he fired off another shadow talisman. As long as the roe deer demons dodged the shadow talisman, he could instantly flash behind them to attack again. Unexpectedly, Da Pao did not dodge at all. He simply raised his arm to block, letting the shadow talisman strike his left arm, where it embedded itself with a loud clang. In the prior fighting, he had already figured out that the shadow talisman was the anchor point for Yue Wen's teleportation. "Quick, go!" he yelled. "He can't teleport! Use that move!" Over there, Er Pao leaped into the air, spun his body like a drill bit for countless midair rotations, and slammed roaring toward Yue Wen! It was none other than the roe deer brothers' exclusive secret technique: the Golden Headbutt! This move was their most powerful attack, but because the cost was also great and it could not be retracted once unleashed, they rarely used it. Faced with formidable foes like Yue Wen and Zhao Xing'er, they finally held nothing back. At the cost of injuring himself, Da Pao had bought Er Pao the chance for this strike! Facing the headbutt spinning like a tornado, a flicker of shock appeared in Yue Wen's eyes. He had not expected these two injured roe deer could still unleash such a potent attack. *Boom-crash—!* In the blink of an eye, the Golden Headbutt smashed into the ground, kicking up a towering pillar of dust. "Heh-heh-heh!" Da Pao chuckled triumphantly. "Foolish human, you won't survive this..." Before his words even finished, a crescent arc of light struck in from the side. Having just slain the tiger demon with her staff, Zhao Xing'er had heard the commotion over here. Seeing Da Pao sneering at the dust pillar, she assumed Yue Wen had met with their foul play. Her brows knitted at once, and the crimson glow flared again. "Boss!" she roared in fury, darting over as her eyebrow-length bronze staff swept across like a crescent moon! Seeing that Huang Dahu hadn't even lasted a brief moment, Da Pao showed sheer astonishment and strained to ward off the strike. Yet this attack was stopped short by a shout from overhead. A streak of sword light descended from above, and simultaneously Yue Wen shouted, "Leave it to me!" Caught slightly off guard, Zhao Xing'er paused in her tracks. Da Pao's attention was fully fixed on the charging Zhao Xing'er, so he completely failed to notice the silver light dropping from high above! Unintentionally, they had pulled off a feint to the front and a strike from behind, making a diversion. *Pfft—* The sword-control art pierced clean through his skull in an instant! Yue Wen's unscathed figure dropped from the sky, landing right before him. "How is this possible..." Da Pao gripped the shadow talisman on his arm. "I clearly..." Yue Wen flashed another shadow talisman and said, "Nobody said I only had one." The reason he had only used one shadow talisman initially was purely because this was his first real battle with it; he hadn't wanted to use multiple shadow talismans lest a mishap cause him to split into pieces. The scene in the demonstration where the little black figure split into five paths had still left him quite spooked. Only when his first shadow talisman was trapped by Da Pao's self-harming move did he cast a second shadow talisman into the sky, effortlessly dodging Er Pao's headbutt. A supernatural power like the Shadow-Gliding Talisman Art was indeed a bit overkill when used against the roe deer brothers. Purely toying with them. With a thud, Da Pao lost his breath entirely, his corpse toppling backward. Yue Wen stepped forward, retrieved his shadow talisman, and turned to look. The dust and smoke had just dispersed, revealing Er Pao over there. His head and entire upper body were planted straight into the rocky ground, leaving only two legs kicking frantically in the air while a pair of short arms struggled to pull him out. This was the flaw of the Golden Headbutt: after using it, one could easily end up stuck in a state where one literally could not pull oneself out. He was still mumbling something, his voice coming out muffled from below: "Big Brother! That kid definitely got smashed to death by me! Come pull me out! Oh, you must be busy—you've got to team up with Huang Dahu to pincer that broad! Once I pull my own head out, the three of us will take her on together! We'll beat her to death! I won't stop until her skull is planted in the dirt... Hee-yah!" With a crack, having exerted the strength of nine bulls and two roe deer, he finally yanked his upper body free. Then, looking up, he saw Yue Wen and Zhao Xing'er standing off to the side, two pairs of bright eyes watching him with great amusement. Meanwhile, Huang Dahu and his elder brother were both lying on the ground nearby, clearly dead as doornails. In an instant, grief, confusion, shock... all kinds of complex emotions tangled within Er Pao's smooth cerebral cortex, causing his mind to briefly blue-screen. "Whose head were you planning to plant in the dirt?" Zhao Xing'er asked with a sneer. "Mine, of course," Er Pao whimpered in reply, turning right around to dive back into the hole he had just left. The hole might be dark, but seeing nothing at all was way better than looking up and seeing two supreme demon kings. "Take this and die!" Zhao Xing'er erupted at once, swinging her eyebrow-length staff to bash him into oblivion. "Xing'er, calm down!" Yue Wen scooped her up around the waist, paying no heed to her legs flailing in the air as he moved her aside. "Leave this roe deer demon to me." "Why?" Zhao Xing'er asked, puzzled. *Because you already killed Huang Dahu, and just now you almost killed Big Roe Deer. If I don't get proactive, I'll have fought all this time without earning a single evil-suppressing coin!* *Do you think I fight evil entities just for fun?* Naturally, kill-stealing wasn't something he could say out loud. Yue Wen pondered for a moment and said, "Weren't you injured just now? Don't aggravate your wounds." During her fierce clash with Huang Dahu, she had indeed taken a heavy punch. Even with the protection and mending from her martial spirit red glow, her vital energy was not as robust as before. "But..." Zhao Xing'er said, "you're injured too." Yue Wen had been struck earlier, and he indeed looked a bit weakened. "It's no big deal for me. Just do as you're told." Yue Wen patted her shoulder, turned, and strode forward, leaving her with only his back. Sensing that she still seemed eager to help, he added, "If you help me, I'm docking your pay too." Zhao Xing'er furrowed her brows. The target locked in by her bronze staff instantly shifted from Er Pao to the back of Yue Wen's head, turning and rubbing against her grip as if she were debating whether to strike. In the time it took them to talk, Er Pao had already run off. Though Yue Wen and Zhao Xing'er were hurt, Er Pao was injured far worse. He had taken a hammer blow from Zhao Xing'er, a sword strike from Yue Wen, and had dazed himself senseless with his own headbutt. Knowing full well that staying here meant certain death at the hands of these two terrifying humans, he had tiptoed away while they were talking, then burst into a sprint after putting a few paces between them! *That woman couldn't catch me earlier; she definitely won't catch me this time either, right?* So he thought to himself. Yet just as he was about to plunge into the dense forest ahead, he suddenly noticed a talisman shaped like a curved blade pinned to the trunk of a tree. A shadow talisman. Er Pao gasped. *Isn't this...* Immediately, a purplish-black shadow flickered, and Yue Wen's figure instantaneously appeared right where the shadow talisman was. "Where do you think you're going!" With a crisp shout, his flying sword flew forth. "Roar—!" Er Pao bellowed in fury, raising the hammer in his hand once more. At this moment of life and death, he unleashed every ounce of his power. *I tempered my physical body in the wasteland zone for so long, going through countless battles! My entire body is harder than steel!* *You think you can stop me?* *Ch—* A silver gleam pierced Er Pao's throat in an instant! Yue Wen nonchalantly withdrew his two fingers and held his wrist upright. A streak of flowing light returned and coiled back into a bracelet, a wisp of white spiritual breath drifting from the hilt. The gold-tier assassins, the roe deer brothers, had met their curtain call. The moment Er Pao hit the ground, a wisp of golden vapor flowed into Yue Wen's body. Together, the two brothers had brought Yue Wen an income of eighty-two evil-suppressing coins! Individually speaking, they were indeed the strongest evil entities he had ever slain. One could only say that while Huang Dahu's intentions in leading a hit squad to ambush them were vile, the outcome had been executed splendidly. A pity the black tiger had gotten away. Still, with his level of cultivation, he wouldn't amount to much even with decades more practice, so there was no need to worry about him returning for revenge. Yue Wen looked at Zhao Xing'er and reminded her, "When the company people ask later, don't mention the details of this battle. Just treat them as a few ordinary evil entities. The Tiger Head Gang's retaliation should be over now, and bringing up that they snuck in will only disrupt the livestream... and get in the way of our making money." "Okay." Zhao Xing'er nodded, then asked, "Why do I feel like you've gotten stronger again?" Not only had their enemy Huang Dahu felt this, but as his companion, Zhao Xing'er felt it just as keenly. A few days ago, when fighting several tiger demons in the basement, Yue Wen hadn't displayed combat strength anywhere near this formidable, nor did he possess this position-swapping supernatural power. The current Yue Wen felt rather unfamiliar to her. "Heh." Yue Wen smiled faintly. "After finishing the arena matches yesterday, I had a small breakthrough." "Huh?" Zhao Xing'er was astonished. In truth, there really was such a saying among Union Realm cultivators. The reason immortal sects generally sent their disciples out into the world for tempering upon reaching the Third Realm was that the Union Realm was precisely about uniting essence, qi, and spirit; and the way to accelerate the fusion of essence, qi, and spirit was through combat. Having gone through several fierce battles recently, Yue Wen felt his essence, qi, and spirit harmonize into a seamless, flawless whole. This state was generally known as Union Realm great perfection. That was easier said than done, however. In reality, how could it be so simple? The harmonizing of essence, qi, and spirit required honing and feeling out through battle after battle. Sometimes, the process of reaching great perfection was like a discount-slashing referral promo on certain apps: it looked closer and closer, but there was always an infinitesimal sliver left to go, demanding a long period of comprehension. Zhao Xing'er herself had spent months in the Third Realm and had experienced multiple battles recently, yet the progress she had gained was hardly noticeable. Seeing Yue Wen casually reach great perfection after just a few fights, she found it utterly hard to believe. *Are you kidding me?* *Breaking through so easily—are you the immortal body, or am I?* *Could it be... I'm dumber than the Boss?* *Impossible.* *Absolutely impossible!*