Chapter 15: Ambush!!

"That useless coward... he sure runs fast."

Xiao Lin was worried about Lu Xuan's safety and wanted to pursue, but he was tightly entangled by the mountain bandits and couldn't break free.

Ye Qingyi slashed down a mountain bandit and glanced at the cart disappearing down the road.

Her expression was thoughtful... but only for a moment. She turned back to the fight.

The one-eyed man also saw it.

"Pursue! Don't let him run off to report this!"

At his command, ten mountain bandits immediately mounted their horses and gave chase.

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The cart sped wildly along the mountain road, its wheels crashing over stones and roots, the wooden frame groaning with every bump.

Lu Xuan sat at the front and looked back.

Four mountain bandits on horseback were the first to catch up, gaining ground fast, close enough now that he could hear the hooves pounding behind him.

"Stop! If you run again, I'll hack you to death!"

"Stop, kid... you can't escape."

Lu Xuan didn't listen. He didn't even flinch.

Because he was never running.

His gaze toward the bandits behind him changed... and if any of them had been close enough to see his eyes, they would have turned their horses around.

It was not fear.

It was hunger.

He glanced at the dense woods lining the roadside, pulled the reins hard, and the cart lurched off the main road onto a narrow side path.

The path was tighter here, the canopy closing overhead, shadows swallowing the moonlight.

Lu Xuan jumped off the cart, slapped the horse's flank, and let the cart keep rolling forward on its own.

Then he vanished into the bushes.

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The first bandit caught up and saw the empty cart still rolling ahead. He pulled his reins in confusion.

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"Where is he?"

"Behind you."

The bandit heard the voice and turned his head... but before his eyes could focus....

Deer Form. Great Perfection.

Lu Xuan was already there.

He threw a punch.

Tiger Form: Heart Ripper.

His fist smashed clean through the bandit's chest. Ribs cracked inward, blood erupted from the man's mouth, and his body flew off the horse like a ragdoll, crashing into the dirt with a wet thud.

Lu Xuan didn't stop. Didn't even look down.

The second bandit came around the bend, saw the crumpled body on the ground, and his pupils shrank.

"There's an ambu—"

Before the word left his mouth, Lu Xuan was already in front of him.

Another punch. Clean through.

Tiger Form: Heart Ripper.

The third followed the second. The fourth followed the third.

Lu Xuan moved through the dark woods like a ghost, using the trees as cover, the shadows as his cloak. Every time a bandit rounded the bend and saw the body of the man before him... Lu Xuan was already behind the next one.

Fifth. Sixth. Seventh.

Corpses piled along the narrow path, one after another. Each one with a hole punched clean through their chest. Each one killed before they could scream.

He wasn't fighting.

He was hunting.

A decade of being called trash. A decade of swallowing every insult, every beating, every drop of blood drawn from his body. All of it poured into his fists tonight, and it felt... good.

No... it felt right.

The dense forest had gone completely silent. Even the insects had stopped chirping. The only sound was the dripping of blood from the branches where it had splattered.

Eighth. Ninth. Tenth.

Lu Xuan slowly withdrew his hand. There were no more bandits left to kill.

He stood alone on the path, surrounded by corpses and silence, and exhaled.

Then he moved.

Deer Form: Pursuit.

His body flowed forward like a cool breeze, ten paces in a single step, and within moments he had caught up to the still-rolling cart.

He flipped onto the front, grabbed the reins, and slowed the horse to a walk.

His breathing was steady. His heartbeat was calm.

As if nothing had happened.

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Back at the ambush site.

Ye Qingyi brought her blade down in a single, devastating arc. The one-eyed leader's broadsword shattered, and the blade continued through his shoulder.

He fell.

The mountain bandits were instantly leaderless, and within moments they were scattering into the trees like rats.

"Pursue! Get the cart back!"

Old Guo shouted, limping from a wound on his thigh.

Ye Qingyi didn't speak, she mounted her horse and rode hard down the mountain road.

Xiao Lin followed close behind.

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They hadn't ridden far when they found the first body.

A mountain bandit, lying in the middle of the road. His chest had been gouged open... a hole the size of a fist punched clean through.

The smell of blood was thick enough to taste.

Xiao Lin's face went white.

"This... who did this?"

Ye Qingyi dismounted and crouched beside the body, studying the wound.

"Pierced with a single punch," she said quietly. "This technique... it's brutal."

She stood up and kept walking, The second body. The third. The fourth.

One after another, all the way down the narrow path, a total of ten corpses laid out like milestones. Each one killed with a single blow. Each chest hollowed out the same way.

Xiao Lin looked like he might be sick.

"What... what kind of person could do this?"

Ye Qingyi didn't answer.

She looked at the bodies, then at the bloodstains trailing off the road into the brush. The pattern was clear... someone had hidden in the woods and picked them off one by one as they passed.

A thought surfaced in her mind.

Impossible.

How could it be possible?

She shook it off, mounted her horse, and said only, "Keep moving."