Chapter 14: Chapter 14: Very Simple
"What a pity. The kid’s still going to die here."
"Sigh, Sun Sheng is not someone to be trifled with. Killing his subordinate right in front of him..."
"That’s like slapping Sun Sheng right in the face!"
Everyone shook their heads in secret. Just because Wu Chen had killed a lackey at the Eighth Layer of the Body Tempering Realm with a single kick didn’t mean they thought he could be Sun Sheng’s opponent.
Setting aside the fact that Sun Sheng himself was in the Flesh Refining Realm, he also had more than ten thugs at the seventh or eighth layers of the Body Tempering Realm under his command.
Wu Chen might have killed one by surprise, but could he kill all of them?
The few men right here would probably be enough to eat him alive.
"Kid, run! Don’t waste time!"
"Where there’s life, there’s hope!"
Small, well-intentioned shouts came from the crowd. The people clustered around Wu Chen also quietly parted, signaling for him to make a run for it.
After all, it was already remarkable for the young man to have stepped forward, let alone kill one of the enemy. So, everyone around hoped he would survive.
And based on Wu Chen’s performance just now, they felt his chances of escaping with his life were pretty high.
Facing the surrounding voices, Wu Chen acted as if he hadn’t heard a thing. He simply drew back the foot he had just kicked with and patted the dust off his shoe.
He didn’t want to leave. He still hadn’t obtained the Red Sand Palm Martial Arts manual.
"Kid, it seems I really misjudged you!"
A voice laced with fury rang out, causing everyone’s hearts to sink.
The refugees averted their fearful gazes from Wu Chen and looked toward Sun Sheng, who was slowly getting to his feet, and the six lackeys behind him.
The crowd swallowed hard.
One against seven!
’Will he win?’
Looking again at Wu Chen’s lean frame, the crowd could only shake their heads. The answer was all too obvious.
"I didn’t expect to run into someone in the Flesh Refining Realm out here!"
Sun Sheng sized up Wu Chen, a savage grin spreading across his face. "But... you haven’t eaten in a while, have you?"
"How many more strikes like that one can you manage?"
"On a normal day, I might not have been able to do anything to you..."
"But today..."
"Brothers, get him! Kill this bastard!"
He would never fight one-on-one when he could swarm an opponent. Sun Sheng was a tyrant, not an idiot. He had survived this long by relying on all sorts of dishonorable tactics.
He clapped his hands together. Stimulated by his Qi and Blood, his palms swelled, growing a size larger and turning a grayish-brown as he directly unleashed his signature technique.
Red Sand Palm!
The thugs behind Sun Sheng were still in a daze, staring blankly at Scarface’s corpse. They were clearly still in shock, unable to process what had happened.
Sun Sheng’s roar snapped them out of it. Seeing someone stirring up trouble, they all drew their blades in unison, ready to cut down this thorn in their side.
But just as Sun Sheng ordered them to attack, Wu Chen’s right hand was already resting on the hilt of his blade.
WHOOSH!
A gust of wind swept by. Wu Chen exploded into motion, leaving nothing but swirling yellow dust where he once stood. He had vanished.
The two sides were only about ten paces apart. One of the thugs had just drawn his blade three inches when he felt a chill on his neck, followed by a warm gush.
Before he could even see what was happening, darkness consumed him.
By the time someone managed to fully draw their blade, three lackeys were already lying on the ground, their bodies turned into cold corpses.
Wu Chen swung his blade at the next target, a hint of disdain in his heart. ’I overestimated these people.’
It was only then that he realized these bullies who preyed on the common folk were even more useless than he had imagined.
He had thought that a fight against Sun Sheng’s group would be an exceptionally difficult and dangerous struggle.
To avoid being surrounded, he had deliberately killed three of the lackeys first.
Who would have thought that with the fall of these three, the remaining lackeys would be stunned as if by something terrifying?
They did manage to draw their blades, but their bodies were retreating uncontrollably, and a foul-smelling liquid dripped from their crotches.
No one is immune to the fear of death, and they were no exception.
As a result, Wu Chen’s fourth strike actually missed!
It wasn’t that his aim was off—the target had thrown down his blade and fled!
These men were just a ragtag bunch of bandits and thugs. They were happy to share the spoils, but when disaster struck, it was every man for himself.
Now that one had run, the remaining two took one look, hastily tossed their blades aside, and followed suit.
"Useless! A bunch of useless trash that’s all show and no go!"
Seeing the area around him empty out in an instant, Sun Sheng couldn’t help but curse loudly.
Of the group, only he, the Flesh Refining Realm Martial Artist, had not fled.
He raised his large, grayish-brown palms—forged through thousands of strikes in scorching iron sand—and brought them down toward the head of Wu Chen, who had just slain several men in a row.
Wu Chen had wanted to finish off these small fries who had slipped through the net to prevent them from harming others, but Sun Sheng’s palms attacked with such ferocity that he could only meet them with his blade held horizontally.
SCREECH!
The steel blade clashed with the hand, producing a piercing, teeth-grinding sound of twisting metal.
Wu Chen felt a massive force travel up the hilt of his blade, forcing his body down and causing the yellow earth beneath his feet to crack and explode.
It was, however, within a manageable range.
He withdrew his blade and struck again, delivering five slashes in a row.
The forms of the Stone-Shattering Blade Technique were simple, yet every strike was lethal.
All of them were easily deflected by Sun Sheng’s palms.
Against hands that seemed as hard as solid rock, Wu Chen’s successive attacks failed to inflict any effective damage.
’No, what Master Liu said wasn’t entirely correct!’
’When comparing blade techniques to fists and feet, it still comes down to which one is harder.’
’A palm that has been tempered a thousand times won’t necessarily lose to an ordinary blade.’
Wu Chen unleashed a dozen more slashes. Though he was at a disadvantage, he was carefully savoring the experience.
"Haha! Is that all you’ve got!"
Seeing that Wu Chen’s relentless attacks were getting nowhere and that he wasn’t changing his approach, merely taking a beating, Sun Sheng began to laugh arrogantly.
The displeasure from his subordinates’ desertion vanished completely in that moment.
Then, as if that wasn’t satisfying enough, he switched to a different kind of laugh:
"Keh heh heh!"
"Kid, I went through hell to train these hands! If you want to beat your granddaddy with that flimsy blade, you’ll need to train for another ten years, and even then, it’s just a maybe."
"Too bad for you, you won’t get that chance!"
"You’ve thrown enough slashes! Now it’s your turn to taste granddaddy’s Red Sand Palm!"
With that, Sun Sheng took a step forward, closing in on Wu Chen. He swung his palm like a blade, chopping down toward Wu Chen’s body.
At such a close range, the steel blade became a liability. Wu Chen had no choice but to use his Great Success level Spiritual Snake Step to retreat and create distance from Sun Sheng.
Only then could he wield his steel blade freely.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Sun Sheng delivered ten consecutive palm strikes, each one radiating killing intent.
Yet, Wu Chen managed to block every one of these powerful palms with his blade. For a moment, the resounding clash of iron and stone filled the air in a lively cacophony.
Ten palms later, Wu Chen was still standing.
Then, Sun Sheng threw another ten palms, then twenty.
No matter how dire the situation became for Wu Chen, despite all the close calls, those grayish-brown palms simply couldn’t land on him.
Suddenly, the heavily panting Sun Sheng seemed to have a realization.
The fact that his opponent could block over forty of his palm strikes meant he had ample Qi Power. He hadn’t lost a great deal of stamina while fleeing the famine as Sun Sheng had imagined.
If he was truly losing, why wasn’t he trying to escape?!
So what was with him looking like he was on the verge of defeat, with all those close calls?
It was because this bastard was using him for blade practice!
’I’ve become his whetstone!’
’I’m no match for him at all!’
Realization dawned on Sun Sheng, and in an instant, cold sweat beaded on his back.
Sensing the assault from his opponent slowing, Wu Chen sighed softly. ’So he found out?’
Just as Sun Sheng had thought, he was honing his blade technique.
But to be more precise, he was honing his mentality.
It was true that he was getting stronger, but among the three aspects of ’body, mind, and skill,’ only his body and techniques were growing rapidly. His mentality, however, remained stagnant.
How to attack, how to dodge—most of the time, he relied on awareness and instinct.
But when facing a true master, relying on such things was often undependable.
If one day he hesitated, unsure of how to strike, wouldn’t he just become another soul lost to a blade?
Therefore, facing the not-so-formidable Sun Sheng right now was the perfect opportunity to hone his mentality.
Seeing Sun Sheng throw two fierce palm strikes before intentionally pulling back, trying to seize the chance to flee, Wu Chen closed in like a nimble snake.
"You see, if you had figured it out a little later, you could have lived a little longer, couldn’t you?"
"But now..."
SHING!
The flash of the blade streaked across Sun Sheng’s neck, and a cascade of blood sprayed out.
Sun Sheng’s body swayed as he desperately clamped his hands around his own neck, trying to stop the crimson flow.
But even as he squeezed so hard his neck creaked, on the verge of breaking, he couldn’t stop the red from seeping between his fingers.
He staggered a few steps, blood pouring from his mouth and nose, and collapsed unwillingly to the ground, his eyes glaring fixedly at Wu Chen, who had walked up to him.
"Your palm technique is pretty good. You should have it on you, right?"
Wu Chen walked over and began to collect his spoils.
He was visibly breathing heavily, plumes of air visible from his mouth and nose. It was clear that the fight with Sun Sheng had not been easy and had consumed a great deal of his Qi Power.
Although after advancing by studying the blade manual last night, if there was one thing he had in abundance, it was Qi Power.
But if he hadn’t been trying to gauge his own true strength and hone his mentality, to make it more seamlessly integrated with his Martial Arts moves, he would have cut Sun Sheng down with a single slash back at the tenth palm strike.
"Nice, a drop!"
Wu Chen’s fingers touched a booklet. He pulled it out, and when he saw the words ’Red Sand Palm’ on the cover, a smile immediately lit up his face.
He wasn’t in a hurry to read it. He started searching the other lackeys’ corpses and found two more Martial Arts manuals.
Once he finished looting, he stood up unhurriedly, expecting cheers from the crowd for having executed the villain who had oppressed them all.
But to his surprise, the first things that reached his ears were several questions filled with anger and terror:
"You villain! What have you done?"
"Without Sun Sheng and his Red Sand Palm, who’s going to fight off the Demon Corpses outside the village? Who’s going to protect us as we flee south!"
The ones speaking were the few who had given grain to Sun Sheng. They had surplus food and needed Sun Sheng’s protection to escape the Demon Corpses lurking menacingly outside the village.
Now that their protection for the journey south was gone, they couldn’t help but panic, feeling that Wu Chen was the real villain.
Hearing their accusations, Wu Chen didn’t get angry. He simply turned to look at them and said with a calm smile:
"It’s simple. I’ll be the one to protect you."
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