Inside the stone chamber, the corpulent man leading the group was none other than Qi Zhifei, shopkeeper of the Daxuan Money House.
His gaze swept across the crowd and immediately landed upon Master Fang.
His face darkened like stagnant water, and he spoke in a frigid voice:
"Fang Mingxuan... who gave you the audacity to bring this rabble here to court death?"
Master Fang's expression was equally grim.
Narrowing his eyes, he said in a deep voice:
"Shopkeeper Qi, I originally admired your conduct and capability.
"Never did I imagine that you were an evil scoundrel of the Black Fiend Cult.
"My daughter, Fang Lingxin, has repeatedly received your cult's 'tender care.' As the saying goes, courtesy demands reciprocity—today shall be the day your Black Fiend Cult is wiped out!"
"No need for empty words. Kill!"
Fang Shuwen waved a hand and was already charging forward.
He disliked nothing more than long-winded speeches before a fight, allowing an opponent ample time to prepare before striking.
After years of scrapping and clawing through the streets, he preferred striking first to seize the upper hand.
Even now, with his internal skill fully accomplished, habits formed in his childhood were difficult to change.
He sprang forward, closing the distance to two Black Fiend Cultists in a single stride. It was once again the technique Vajra Throws the Pagoda, unleashing a booming, ferocious palm force.
The two cultists still intended to put up a desperate resistance, yet they had never anticipated that Fang Shuwen's palm force would be so vast and boundless.
It was as towering as a mountain, as unfathomable as the sea.
As the violent gale stirred by his palm churned, sensations of suffocation and despair welled up entirely within their hearts.
Two muffled thuds rang out. Swept up by the blast, both men were sent flying backward, every muscle and bone in their bodies shattered. Before they even touched the ground, their breath was already gone.
At the same time, four or five cultists pounced toward Fang Shuwen together.
Fang Shuwen swept his left hand in the Plum Blossom Scattered Hands—flicking, pressing, entangling, and pinning down—suppressing all of their arms beneath his single hand.
The stance of his right hand shifted as his fingers curled into a seal, striking out abruptly.
He used the third form of the Mahakala Palm: Demon-Subduing Dharma Seal.
This palm strike was even more powerful than Vajra Throws the Pagoda, yet its movements were direct and forthright, its force traveling in a straight line.
A sickening crack echoed through the chamber.
The head of the man taking the brunt of the strike was shattered instantly into bloody fragments, a ghastly sight to behold.
Fang Shuwen pulled his palm back and drove it forward again in a fluid motion.
His Plum Blossom Scattered Hands had entangled four or five opponents at once; he naturally had no intention of stopping after killing only one.
Yet this display struck utter terror into the survivors' hearts.
They fought desperately to break free from beneath Fang Shuwen's palm, but his hand was like cast copper and poured iron; no matter how frantically they struggled, they could not pry themselves loose in the slightest.
Even when they circulated their painstakingly cultivated Black Fiend Demon Skill, they could not harm Fang Shuwen at all.
Meanwhile, the others also charged forward into the fray.
Zhou Qingmei held her broken sword, the Thousand-Character Swordplay releasing sharp radiance with every stroke, each character executed with brilliant precision.
Though the blade was shorter than usual, it did not diminish its martial potency.
Senior Brother Zhang's swordsmanship was even superior to hers; battling four or five cultists entirely on his own, the assailants could do nothing against him.
What surprised Fang Shuwen somewhat, however, was Master Fang.
The old man darted left and right through the crowd, appearing distressed and clumsy on the surface, but a closer look revealed that the cultists' Black Fiend Demon Skill had no effect on him whatsoever.
A subtle current of qi seemed to circulate around his body, embodying the principle of brushing past ten thousand blossoms without a single leaf sticking to him.
His moves appeared chaotic, yet with careless ease, he tapped, pressed, jabbed, and clamped down, making life miserable for the surrounding Black Fiend Cultists who besieged him.
Was he deliberately concealing his strength?
If that was the case, Fang Shuwen was left somewhat bewildered.
If the man possessed such profound martial arts, why had Fang Lingxin fallen into peril twice?
Who were those mountain bandits who had raided the caravan back then?
With his capabilities, why had he failed to protect Fang Shuwen as a baby?
Back then, Fang Shuwen had merely been an infant after all, without a thorough grasp of the situation. Could there have been more to that past incident than met the eye?
Not only that, but Fang Shuwen noticed that even the so-called brave mercenaries hired by Master Fang with heavy bounties were far from weak in martial arts.
Whether fighting alone or in groups of three to five, they appeared disordered—like a scattered band of stragglers.
Yet on closer inspection, one could see that their offense and defense complemented each other seamlessly, harboring an unspoken, hidden subtlety.
Had Fang Shuwen not achieved mastery in martial arts and possessed extraordinary discernment, he likely would not have perceived it.
From the moment they struck until now, in just a brief span of time, more than twenty corpses had already fallen across the stone chamber.
All of them belonged to the Black Fiend Cult.
Qi Zhifei watched with an ashen face, beside himself with fury:
"You go too far!"
With that roar, he pressed both palms violently against the ground, vaulting into the air. Stacking his palms together, he lunged straight for Fang Shuwen.
Fang Shuwen's performance throughout this clash was simply too dazzling.
Every lift of his hands and sweep of his feet held boundless might; wherever he passed, not a single foe could withstand a single bout.
As the saying went, to catch the bandits, one must first capture the ringleader. Without taking down Fang Shuwen, how could he turn the tide of battle?
Fang Shuwen had just slammed a Black Fiend Cultist into the earth with a palm strike when he looked up to see dense Black Fiend true qi already bearing down upon him.
He immediately let out a soft shout:
"Good timing!"
With that, he sank his waist into a horse stance, meeting the attack head-on with the Four Seas Dragon Fist.
A thunderous crash echoed!
The moment fist and palm collided, the Black Fiend true qi was instantly wiped clean without a trace.
Qi Zhifei's complexion changed drastically. Trying to pull back now was already too late.
The force of the Four Seas Dragon Fist was like an armor-piercing spear, and propelled by the Yijin Jing, its power penetrated through his entire arm.
The sudden eruption of strength instantly brought forth a huge spray of blood. His arm fractured inch by inch, and amidst Qi Zhifei's agonized shrieks, he was hurled backward through the air.
Fang Shuwen tapped the ground with his foot and leaped into the air.
He did not know lightness skill, relying entirely on his internal force to stay aloft.
He stepped onto the shoulder of a Black Fiend Cultist to borrow momentum, shattering the man's shoulder and making him vomit blood.
Using the leverage of that single step, he caught up to the flying Qi Zhifei.
Five fingers clamped around the man's throat, and the moment Fang Shuwen landed, he barked out a stern cry:
"Qi Zhifei is defeated! Why haven't the rest of you laid down your weapons?"
The Black Fiend Cultists froze. They looked up at Qi Zhifei trapped in Fang Shuwen's grip, exchanging stunned glances, before one shouted:
"Our divine cult has no place in the jianghu! If we surrender, we only seek our own doom!
"Only by fighting our way out can we have a glimmer of survival!"
At these words, the Black Fiend Cultists nodded one after another.
Immediately, they shifted from a pitched battle into a desperate attempt to break through the encirclement.
Seeing this, Fang Shuwen wasted no further words. He simply tapped several acupoints on Qi Zhifei's shoulders, chest, and back, then tossed him aside into a corner.
With a flicker of his figure, he charged back into the fray.
Combining everyone's strength in a concerted assault, it took less than an hour to slaughter every last one of these Black Fiend Cultists.
The entire process went exceptionally smoothly; not a single fish slipped through the net.
Fang Shuwen lightly shook the blood from his hand, glanced at Zhou Qingmei to ensure she was unharmed, and then walked toward the corner where he had tossed Qi Zhifei earlier.
Yet upon arriving, he halted in surprise.
Qi Zhifei, who had been alive and glaring furiously at him just a short while ago, was now dead.
Fang Shuwen narrowed his eyes slightly, a sneer curling at the corner of his lips.
Chapter 27