Chapter Eighty-Nine: Two Hundred Thousand Catty of Force, One Strike to Blast and Kill!

In that moment of Pei Luo’s surprise, a low, youthful voice rang out.

"It truly is the case that after much searching, one finds what was impossible to find, and what arrives costs no effort at all."

Just then, Bai Xuan raised his head and saw the young man across from him gripping a deep-black spear in both hands.

"Who are you?"

Pei Luo frowned. An uneasy premonition stirred faintly in his heart; for some reason, it felt as though he were standing before a fearsome beast, and an instinctive sense of danger made him step back warily, his flying knives flashing into his hand.

"Me?"

Bai Xuan’s gaze was calm.

"For the past few months, you’ve been attacking the Bai family’s ships at sea. You should have known that eventually, someone would come looking for you."

The notices and illustrated broadsheets issued by the Thousand Mountains Army had adopted the style of the official black list; each one bore a portrait, and Pei Luo’s flying knives were especially distinctive. Once seen, he was not likely to be mistaken.

"So you’re here for revenge!"

The words had barely fallen before Pei Luo understood his situation. His brow knotted, but instead of advancing, he retreated. His body shifted, and in an instant he was hurtling backward, leaving afterimages in his wake.

"Go!"

Though his opponent was only a youth, Pei Luo fought with flying knives, relying on a single decisive strike to kill, on the strong overcoming the weak. He would never, in a perilous situation, meet an unknown enemy head-on.

"To know my name, to know what I’ve done, and still be this arrogant..."

Pei Luo understood it clearly.

"They must have some kind of backing. Leave here first, and then talk."

Clang, clang, clang!

From the surrounding woods, more than a dozen crossbows loosed their bolts toward Pei Luo.

"This is all? At least a hundred arrows should have come at once!"

Pei Luo pinched a flying knife between his fingers. His figure flashed backward once more, his speed surging even further until he was close to the peak of the Tiger Pounce Step. With a sweeping slash of his flying knife, clang, clang, clang, more than half of the incoming bolts were severed in midair.

But at that very instant, Bai Xuan’s body flickered. With a thunderous boom, the entire sky seemed to split open with lightning, and a terrifying blast cloud appeared.

The wide stretch of beach nearby exploded upward. Sand and gravel erupted in all directions, and the seawater around them, as though struck by a deep-water bomb, surged more than thirty feet into the air.

"What happened?"

"No good, enemy attack! Protect the captain!"

The Bai family sailors were swept by the shockwave, panic rising in their hearts as they shouted. Clang, clang, clang—the blue-water blades were drawn.

The more than ten elite sailors dropped down from the woods. They had not even had time to react. In a mere instant, the place had become like thunder and fire colliding in a dreadful clash.

...

The mist dispersed.

Bai Xuan released his grip on the Sea-Pacifying Spear. With a muffled whistle, the spear spun once in his hand and then hissed into the ground.

His expression remained utterly calm.

"Half-step grandmaster?"

He stood where he was, his throat moving slightly. With a metallic clank, a twisted flying knife fell from his throat, shattered beyond recognition, having collided so violently that it rang like metal.

Just now, at that critical juncture, Pei Luo had displayed astonishing martial skill, sending out, in an unimaginable instant, that one brilliant strike of light.

But Bai Xuan possessed perfected bronze skin, and his throat was covered in deep azure scales, beneath which flowed defensive blood-energy like ripples on water. He was naturally unharmed.

A gust of wind swept through, dispersing the mist, and all that remained in the ground was a massive crater. The reef rocks had been blasted to pieces, and only countless shattered bones and a faint haze of blood were blown away into the wind.

Pei Luo, the Blood Refining-level star pirate, the formidable expert who had once defeated seven opponents of the same rank with his famed brilliant flying knife, had been reduced to nothing before the strike of the Sea-Pacifying Spear.

"My strength, if used against a giant whale, would perhaps still fall a little short. But a whale’s power comes from the collision of its whole body; on land, it cannot possibly condense its force to one point and strike a grandmaster."

Bai Xuan looked down into the crater.

"But I am different. With the Whirlpool Spear Technique, and even the incomplete transformation of the dragon tail, and perfected Shark Combat, I can fully concentrate my force at the spear tip and bring out the ultimate power."

"With both hands on the spear, even accounting for the spine-dragon and the fact that full-body force cannot be repeated, I still have two hundred thousand jin of strength."

"That two hundred thousand jin—if met with perfected blood-energy like a river and blocked by the might of the Azure Flood Dragon’s water control—might perhaps still be endured."

"But a half-step grandmaster?"

Bai Xuan looked at the blood mist ahead, now slowly dispersing, with only a trace of red remaining in the giant pit.

Even without relying on blood-energy, a half-step grandmaster did not even have the chance to take a single strike from him.

At that moment, Bai Rongxuan, seeing the mist clear and this scene before him, could not help but shudder.

"The enemy... was blasted into blood mist by the captain’s spear?"

He had not been able to gauge Pei Luo’s true level, but from the fact that a volley of more than a dozen crossbow bolts had failed to threaten him, he could tell the man must have been a deeply accomplished martial artist.

And yet, with one spear strike from Bai Xuan, he had burst into a cloud of blood, not even given the chance to leave a final word?

"The captain is truly too powerful. An unparalleled genius, his martial path has reached a terrifying height!"

Bai Rongxuan felt deep admiration. "The footwork and body-hardening arts the captain taught me—I must train even harder."

"Once we return, I’ll practice twice a day... no, three times!"

"After all, the ship carries all kinds of medicinal herbs, and plenty of strange fish to nourish blood-energy. Even if I’m injured, I’ll recover quickly."

At that moment, not only Bai Rongxuan, but the elite sailors around him, all stared at the might of Bai Xuan’s strike in utter震撼, clicking their tongues in awe. Their yearning and hope for the path of martial cultivation only grew stronger.

As for Pei Luo?

No one cared at all. He was merely a tiny enemy, instantly slain by the captain with a casual blow.

...

Half a day later.

The Devouring Sea set sail slowly, leaving the reefs on the far side of the island behind, and with them three pirate ships blazing fiercely in the flames.

After Bai Xuan killed Pei Luo with a casual strike, he knew where the pirate ships had come from. He led the Devouring Sea in a wide loop to the other side and dealt with the pirate ships that had been badly damaged in the storm as well.

Amid the flames, the three pirate ships slowly sank into the waters around the reefs.

"The spoils are not small."

Bai Xuan sat in the captain’s cabin, his gaze sweeping outside.

Beside the Devouring Sea, another broad ironwood warship sailed slowly along with it.

This was precisely Pei Luo’s own flagship, a warship of ironwood. Though it had been caught in the storm, it had suffered little damage, and was nearly as costly and formidable as the Devouring Sea.

At present, Bai Xuan had enough sailors aboard to total one hundred and fifty, enough to spare fifty men to barely get that ironwood warship moving.

"Pei Luo is dead, and his bones are gone as well; naturally there is no corpse to bear witness. Still, with his flagship as proof of the battle, I should be able to exchange it for five portions of the Taishui medicine."

Bai Xuan was in a very pleasant mood.

Inside his cabin stood a wide porcelain vat, in which the enormous, horse-sized taishui was slowly writhing.

"Hiss, hiss!"

The scarlet sea serpent had grown lively, swimming ceaselessly in a delicate crystal tank as though craving something.

"Are you hungry?"

Bai Xuan rose to his feet. Clang. His left hand transformed into the claw of an azure flood dragon, and with a grab through the air, he tore off a lump of taishui flesh.

The taishui seemed to feel no pain at all, showing no reaction whatsoever as it continued its slow writhing.

Bai Xuan fed a little of the black taishui flesh to the scarlet sea serpent. He could see the concentrated black blood-energy, once it entered the serpent’s abdomen, quickly dissolving within.

"Hiss, hiss!"

On the scarlet sea serpent’s body, a thin yet terrifying layer of baleful energy appeared, representing its strange venom.

At that moment, it coiled twice, swallowed the entire lump of taishui flesh, and slowly settled down, drifting into sleep in the water.

"So be it."

Seeing the faint baleful aura on the scarlet sea serpent slowly grow denser, Bai Xuan knew it was not only unharmed, but had gained great benefit.

He left the sea serpent for now and returned to the table, where with a turn of his hand he produced several items.

"The things on Pei Luo’s person, including the meteor-iron flying knives, were all shattered by my blow. But on the ship, there are still some spoils."

Among these objects were a small bottle of elixirs, a scroll as wide as a handspan, seven meteor-iron flying knives, and three pale-yellow talismans that seemed to be made from yellow paper and cinnabar.

One chapter finished at thirteen thousand words today. Tomorrow, the daily total will continue at ten thousand! Forward, onward! Since chapter lengths differ, it may not be split into the same number of parts, but the total word count will always exceed ten thousand!