Although none of the three items he had obtained could be used immediately, Han Li still took them all without the slightest hesitation.
Then he stood up, brushed the dust from his clothes, and turned to look at Jia Tianlong and the rest of the Wild Wolf Gang with an expression that hovered between a smile and something else entirely.
"Would you prefer to sever your own meridians, or shall I lend you a hand and send you on your way?" Han Li's tone was courteous, but his words left absolutely no room for negotiation.
The moment Jia Tianlong heard these words, a bone-deep cold washed over him, so intense that his entire face stiffened.
He kept telling himself to stay calm—there had to be some way to deal with this person—but he couldn't help wiping his face, smearing away a forehead full of cold sweat. Jia Tianlong let out a bitter smile. He didn't need a mirror to know that his complexion must have been ghastly, probably utterly wretched.
He turned his stiff neck with some effort and looked at the people around him. Every face was ashen—pale with terror and panic, wearing the expression of those awaiting imminent doom. These men stood helpless, without a trace of fighting spirit left.
Feeling his spirits sink even further, Jia Tianlong shifted his gaze toward the Seven Mysteries Sect. There, his mortal enemy Wang Juechu was staring at him with cold, emotionless eyes—the way one might look at a dead man. Most of the others wore expressions of long-overdue vengeance satisfied.
Jia Tianlong's mind went blank. His gaze drifted, almost unconsciously, beyond the arena to those who were supposed to be his loyal subordinates. Their expressions were varied—some looked anxious, others indifferent—but a large group actually had looks of delight on their faces, huddled together and whispering among themselves, radiating undisguised schadenfreude.
"No! I absolutely cannot die here like this! I will survive—I will go on to complete my empire!" Something in someone's expression had struck a nerve, and a flash of madness suddenly blazed in Jia Tianlong's eyes.
"Men! Iron Guards, step forward! Prepare the crossbows! The rest of you—ready your hidden weapons!" Jia Tianlong suddenly channeled all his inner strength and bellowed the order.
Jia Tianlong was, after all, a gang leader. That roar, charged with the power of his internal energy, jolted every stunned person in the arena back to their senses, as if waking from a dream. Whether they were members of the Wild Wolf Gang or martial artists from the smaller factions, each man now seemed to find his anchor, cracking knuckles and rolling shoulders, settling into stances for a fight to the death.
Han Li furrowed his brow slightly, gave a soft snort, and then slowly began walking toward Jia Tianlong, hands clasped behind his back, alone.
Looks like I'll have to go through a bit more trouble, he thought with a touch of self-mockery.
"Fire!" The moment he saw the young man step within range of the repeating crossbows, Jia Tianlong licked his parched lips and gave the command without hesitation.
In an instant, hundreds of dark steel bolts screamed through the air toward Han Li, so densely packed they left no gap to breathe in the small patch of space before him.
An astonishing spectacle unfolded. Jia Tianlong watched as the young man faced the incoming volley without the slightest hint of fear. Instead, he turned and offered an eerie smile. Then his body began to blur, growing translucent. The bolts that reached him passed clean through, streaking away into the distance—as if, for that brief instant, his body had become substanceless. Then, in broad daylight, the figure wavered a few times and vanished without a trace.
Jia Tianlong's face had gone iron-grey. He had just opened his mouth to order his men to be cautious when Han Li suddenly reappeared only a dozen paces away from them.
This time, before Jia Tianlong could even give a command, the Iron Guards fired their crossbows once more in a wild volley, supplemented by darts, sleeve arrows, and all manner of hidden weapons from the others—all hurtling toward Han Li in a swarm. But to their collective astonishment, the target vanished from sight once again, right before their very eyes.
Jia Tianlong was still reeling between fear and shock when two piercing screams erupted from directly behind him. He startled violently and whipped his head around.
Two Iron Guards standing close together had suddenly been engulfed into blazing pillars of flame. And the young man who had disappeared was just pulling his palms away from their bodies. The instant his hands lifted, the two guards crumbled to ash and vanished entirely. From the retreating palms, Jia Tianlong caught a faint glimpse of red light flickering at the center—but whatever technique or art that might be, he had no idea.
What Jia Tianlong had just witnessed was a perfect demonstration of Han Li combining magical arts with martial technique. The red glow cupped in his palm was none other than the small fireball from the Fire Bullet Technique.
Magical power circulated slowly within Han Li's body, replenishing the fireball that had shrunk from expenditure back to its original size. Then his form flickered and vanished again, only to reappear at the far end of the crowd—where he turned yet another person into a raging blaze.
And so it went. Han Li flickered in and out among the throng, and with every appearance, another victim fell. No matter which part of a person's body his hand touched, that individual burst into flames and was utterly erased from the world.
Jia Tianlong stared blankly ahead, all light gone from his eyes, his face turned the ashen grey of a corpse.
In that brief span, more than half of his men had been annihilated. Those who remained were each consumed by self-preservation, scrambling in every direction to flee. But before that ghost-like movement, one by one, they were all reduced to ashes.
When his very last subordinate was consumed by flame, Jia Tianlong had gone completely numb.
He knew that the only reason he was still alive until now was because his opponent had deliberately spared him. But now that he was the last one left, the fire of death would surely descend upon his head next.
Han Li did not keep the gang leader waiting. The moment he dispatched the last subordinate, he flickered behind Jia Tianlong without a heartbeat's hesitation and bestowed upon Boss Jia a full-powered Fire Bullet Technique—a courtesy of sorts—sending him on his final journey.
After Jia Tianlong had departed this world, Han Li clapped his hands together and murmured to himself, "Looks like killing a few more people really isn't that hard. If only I'd let you do it yourselves earlier—wouldn't that have been better? No pain, either. But no—you had to make me do it personally. Being burned alive isn't a pleasant sensation, I assure you."
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(End of chapter)