"If I don't kill them, my escape plan will certainly be obstructed. Killing them carries its own risks. If too many prodigies die, the higher-ups of the eight great houses might grow suspicious, and I could be exposed."
Jiang Chen found himself in a dilemma. His anger toward that Kuang fellow had reached a boiling point.
"Forget it. If I don't kill them, my plan can never be carried out."
After weighing the matter once more, Jiang Chen made his decision to strike.
But striking now was different from before. Previously, he had still been operating with the goal of sharpening himself. Now, however, the objective was a clean kill in a single blow.
Only a one-hit kill could minimize the risk of alerting anyone to what was happening.
His mind began racing, constructing an assassination plan. The opposing side had three people, but there was a clear gap in their levels—they were practically disjointed.
Jiang Chen was confident that if he performed well, he could eliminate them one by one without issue.
"Twenty-four prodigies in total. If I kill these three, that makes five. If I then take out one more genius from the Xuan Rui family and seize a grey cloak, that would be six dead. A one-quarter mortality rate isn't particularly high. The eight great houses should already know that prodigies kill each other during these trials. That mortality rate isn't outrageous, is it?"
Jiang Chen slowed his pace, then sprang upward, landing in the canopy of a large tree.
If they refused to stop haunting him, then he would simply destroy them body and soul. That was Jiang Chen's principle.
That Kuang prodigy was certainly not slow when it came to speed. Purely in terms of velocity, though, he couldn't match Xue Feng. That fellow might have been weaker in overall combat power compared to Xuan Rui and this Kuang prodigy, but when it came to speed alone, he was truly exceptional.
As the Kuang prodigy drew near to where Jiang Chen was hiding, he suddenly halted, peering from afar at the large tree where Jiang Chen lay concealed.
"What's wrong? Stopped running?"
Jiang Chen smiled faintly. "What do you think of this place?"
The Kuang prodigy replied flatly, "As your burial ground, it seems rather fitting."
Jiang Chen nodded. "You seem quite satisfied, then. Let it be here."
As he spoke, Jiang Chen raised both arms, the Sacred Dragon Bow now in hand, and loosed an arrow without a shred of courtesy toward his target.
The arrow screamed through the air like a meteor, tearing through the void and leaving a brutal trail across the sky.
The Kuang prodigy's pupils contracted slightly—he was visibly surprised. Xuan Rui was an archery prodigy, true enough, but his style of archery didn't match this at all.
Could it be that Xuan Rui had mastered multiple archery techniques?
If so, then this Xuan Rui truly could not be underestimated.
While the Kuang prodigy was still mulling this over, a shadow faster than lightning had already lunged into striking range.
"What the—?!" At such a distance, he wasn't afraid of arrows. But this shadow that suddenly bore down on him caught him completely off guard.
What made it truly terrifying was that the lunge came without the slightest warning, and its momentum was so overwhelming that he had absolutely no power to resist.
The impact knocked him flat to the ground.
The next instant, his entire body went numb and tingly, rendered completely immobile. The shadow twisted him into a tight bundle in the blink of an eye and tossed him before Jiang Chen.
Jiang Chen smiled coldly, planting his foot on the Kuang prodigy's face. "Fool. I didn't want to kill anyone, but you just had to force my hand. Tell me—what's your name?"
Jiang Chen casually erected a sound barrier. "Don't bother trying to scream. You could scream your lungs out and no one would hear you. I know you have two companions. Don't worry—as soon as they arrive, I'll send them to join you."
His tone was unhurried, yet every word sent a chill of terror through the Kuang prodigy's entire body. Something felt deeply wrong.
This Xuan Rui before him was utterly foreign, utterly horrifying.
He and Xuan Rui had been rivals since they were ten years old, battling for over a decade, with victories and defeats on both sides. But most of the time, it was he who held the upper hand over Xuan Rui.
Yet this time, he had been defeated so completely—and after he himself had carefully laid the trap, no less. It was he who had stumbled headlong into his own snare.
But this version of Xuan Rui filled him with boundless terror, with an unfamiliarity that cut to the bone.
Why would Xuan Rui ask for his name? After over a decade of rivalry, would Xuan Rui not already know who he was? A sudden, icy dread surged through the Kuang prodigy's heart.
An unprecedented wave of fear crashed over him.
Jiang Chen didn't bother waiting for a response. He gave the man's body a cursory search and soon produced his identity token.
"Kuang Rong?" Jiang Chen said lightly. "So your name is Kuang Rong."
Kuang Rong's body convulsed. He stared at Jiang Chen with eyes full of terror and rasped, "You're not Xuan Rui!? You're actually not Xuan Rui? Then who are you?!"