Volume One: A Glimmer of Greatness, Chapter Ninety-Four: Boy, You Forced My Hand!

Driven by the lure of enormous profit, the fear in their hearts was swiftly driven away, and they all drew their weapons.

Yet in truth, very few dared to make a move.

One man, however, was brimming with killing intent. He drew his bow, aimed at Wang Jue, and without another word loosed several arrows at once.

Hiss...

Then his expression changed, and he drew a sharp breath.

The arrows he had fired were dodged with effortless ease. Wang Jue simply shifted his feet in place, his body swaying slightly, and the shafts missed him without even touching a hem of his clothing.

"My heavens, he actually has footwork this terrifying?"

Before the archer could string another arrow, Wang Jue had already flashed forward in a few steps, swift as lightning.

"That earlier shot was you, wasn't it?"

Wang Jue's voice was cold. "I hadn't even come looking for you, and you dare come provoke me. You truly don't know how to spell death."

As soon as the words fell, the longsword in his hand turned into a streak of white light.

The sword came down like thunder.

"No! Don't kill me, I don't want to die!"

Seeing Wang Jue charging at him, the archer was instantly panicked and screamed at the top of his lungs, his voice shrill with terror. "Captain, save me..."

The gale that swept toward him seemed like countless blades, slicing across the top of his head.

At the instant death descended, he suddenly recalled the gruesome scene of Han Li and the others being slaughtered, and terror shook him to the core.

The next moment, the scream was cut off abruptly.

Slash...

A head flew high into the air, eyes still wide open in death.

"Damn it, are all of you useless?"

With another man dead, Wu Lei roared in fury. "Can't you see he's alone? Stop being afraid, all of you, attack together!"

Attack together?

Wang Jue's eyes flashed with cold light as he stood with his sword in hand and swept his gaze around.

Let's see who dares.

And indeed, no one stepped forward.

He was not afraid simply because the other side had more people. In his eyes, killing a few men was no different from killing a few Blood Wolves.

Blood Wolves were star beasts without intelligence, and they only had a handful of moves. Humans, however, had wisdom. So long as he stayed careful, there was almost no chance of falling victim to some dirty trick and suffering a disastrous defeat at the last minute.

"Goddamn it, a bunch of cowards!"

Seeing that none of them dared move, Wu Lei could not help cursing inwardly. With no other choice, he stepped forward himself, his face dark. "Kid, I'll admit I underestimated you before. But you underestimated me too. A year ago I had already reached Spirit Nurturing level eight, and now I'm at the peak of the ninth level, just one step away from breaking through to the Crimson Star Realm.

"Making yourself my enemy is absolutely the most regrettable choice of your life..."

Before Wu Lei could finish, the answer he got was a devastating surge of savage sword light.

"Oh? Is that so?"

Wang Jue's voice echoed coldly and mercilessly through the woods. "Then take one of my sword strikes!"

A domineering aura steeped in brutal killing intent swept across the entire field in an instant. It felt as though even time had frozen.

At this critical moment, Wu Lei's hair stood on end. "Damn it, this is even more powerful than those two strikes before. Could this brat have been hiding his strength?"

Thinking that, his expression darkened. He slipped past the sword light, his arms twisting like coiling serpents, and both palms struck forward like thunder.

Boom...

A palm shot into the air, and the dull burst of energy sounded like a tiger's roar.

It landed squarely on the spine of Wang Jue's sword.

Bang...

At the place where the two had planted their feet, cracks burst across the ground in sheets, and countless stones flew apart.

Wu Lei was forced to take a step back, his face green with anger.

Wang Jue also retreated, but before he could stabilize himself, someone on his flank lunged in with a long spear.

Whoosh!

It was only a second short of piercing Wang Jue's chest and killing him on the spot.

Wang Jue showed no panic at all. Rather than halting his retreat, he used the momentum to fall back a few more steps, neatly evading the ambush thrust.

At the same time, Wu Lei on the other side dropped into a horse stance and released a fist like a deadly arrow, bursting forward all at once.

The two of them attacked from front and rear, clearly intending to leave Wang Jue with no way out.

Faced with the joint assault, Wang Jue's eyes were like lightning. In a posture beyond ordinary comprehension, he narrowly avoided Wu Lei's punch.

At the same time, he extended his left hand and, with brutal force, seized the spear shaft driving toward him.

The difference in strength was too great. He gave a single tug.

Before the man's expression could even change, Wang Jue swung his right hand and brought his sword down.

Ssshh...

Another kill.

"See that? None of you can beat him one-on-one. If two of us attack together, he's already close to being unable to hold on."

Seeing his squad shrink again, Wu Lei, now seething with failure, hurriedly shouted, "What are you waiting for? Hurry up and help me, or we'll all die here!"

At his words, the remaining three or four members of the team were flooded by a fierce desire to live, and they rushed forward without the slightest hesitation.

Looking at the men surrounding him, Wang Jue still had no intention of retreating.

After killing three men in succession, he now radiated an overwhelming murderous aura.

Then Wang Jue, sword in hand, advanced instead of retreating, charging headlong into the enemy with a stance so fierce it seemed almost reckless.

He looked like a demonic god.

If he met a deity, he would kill the deity.

If he met a Buddha, he would kill the Buddha.

If he met a man, he would kill the man.

Whoever blocked his way would die.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Violent collisions shook the earth and mountains.

Rumble...

Nearby trees snapped one after another, and countless rocks flew through the air. The battle was ferocious beyond measure.

Crack, crack...

No one knew how long it lasted.

In the end, only three figures remained on the battlefield, locked in combat.

As the members of his team were reduced one after another, Wu Lei felt a chill rise in his heart. "This isn't a man. He's a monster!"

He could not understand why the fellow before him grew stronger with every exchange. Even though he was already covered in wounds, he seemed to have endless stamina.

With so many of his people surrounding and killing him, not only had they failed to bring Wang Jue down, they had instead been whittled down to the last two.

"Yu Yuan, don't be afraid! His star power is almost gone. Let's go together!" Wu Lei shouted.

The instant he spoke, Wang Jue had already raised his sword toward the young man named Yu Yuan.

Bang!

A fierce resolve burst in Wang Jue's eyes. In a split second, he made his decision and took Wu Lei's punch straight on with his body.

Using that opening, he roared and killed Yu Yuan on the spot.

Pfft...

Blood mist sprayed outward, and a corpse collapsed helplessly to the ground with a heavy thud, kicking up a cloud of dust.

From that moment on, only two figures remained on the vast battlefield: Wang Jue, fierce and murderous, and Wu Lei, who could scarcely believe what he was seeing.

"Ah... damn you, bastard!"

The rage in Wu Lei's heart was beyond words. "I'll grind your bones to dust and scatter them to the wind to sate my hatred!"

This team had taken him five hard years to build. How many hardships had he endured in that time?

He had never imagined that before it could truly rise to fame, it would be destroyed today.

As a result, when he looked at Wang Jue now, his eyes were filled with boundless hatred.

By now, he had forgotten the Nine-Leaf Flower. He had forgotten Wang Jue's spoils. All he wanted was to kill this brat who had ruined years of his effort.

Rrrrip...

Blinded by rage, Wu Lei acted much like a drunkard in a brawl, tearing off his upper garment in one motion and revealing a lean, battle-scarred upper body.

He had not intended to use this final move.

Once he did, after the effect wore off, he would face half a month of weakness.

During that time, he would be worse than an ordinary man, unable even to manage the simplest necessities without someone to look after him.

But now his entire team was dead. Left alone, he wanted nothing more than to drag Wang Jue down with him.

One could say he no longer had any concerns at all.

Just as he was about to lunge at Wang Jue, a woman's voice suddenly drifted over from a distance, carrying a hint of amusement.

"Well, this is lively. Need a hand?"

Wang Jue and Wu Lei both turned toward the sound.

More than thirty feet away, on a tree thick enough that five men could barely wrap their arms around it, a young woman with her hair tied in a bun sat on a branch, watching the battle with great interest.

No one knew how long she had been there.

"No need!" Wu Lei refused with a look of disdain.

Unexpectedly, the bun-haired beauty rolled her eyes. "I wasn't talking to you."

"Uh..."

Wu Lei was left speechless, glaring at her coldly.

Her sudden appearance also made him hesitate over whether he should use that ace in the hole, the kind that kills a thousand enemies and wounds eight hundred of yourself.

Or should he wait until the effect wore off and then kill both Wang Jue and the bun-haired girl together?

Wang Jue: ...

Hearing the exchange between the two, he gave the girl a strange look.

He didn't know her at all.

He couldn't quite understand why she would want to help him.

At that moment, the bun-haired girl met his puzzled gaze with a grin and said, "Hmm, anyone able to afford a custom-made weapon is usually loaded. Rich guy, give me five... no, three million, and I'll kill him for you. How about it?"

Wang Jue: ...

You must be dreaming.

He immediately withdrew his gaze and ignored her.

Seeing this, the bun-haired girl sprang to her feet on the branch like a shrewd merchant. "Oh, too expensive? Fine, I'll lower the price. How about two million?"

"Hmph..."

Wang Jue snorted and gave her no response at all. With blazing momentum, he raised his sword and hacked at Wu Lei.

Each strike was fiercer than the last.

Ssshh...

Dodging one blow, Wu Lei was still grazed by the blade, and another wound opened across his body, blood streaming down at once.

Staggering back a step, his eyes burned with fury. "Kid, don't force me!"

"Heh. Force you? Do you still have any shame left?"

Wang Jue sneered in disdain. "Who's forcing whom here? Where did all that arrogance go, the one you had when you wanted to kill me earlier?"

With that, the longsword in his hand erupted once more with blinding brilliance, and he slashed at Wu Lei again.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Wu Lei's weapon was a pair of gauntlets over his fists, but compared with Wang Jue's custom longsword, it was still leagues inferior.

The two once more fought in a furious exchange, sparks flying everywhere, the sound of collision like thunder.

Bang!

He took a blow head-on, and the force shattered the skin at the base of his thumb beneath the gauntlet, blood pouring out.

His face had already darkened completely.

He knew he could not go on like this.

If it continued, he would certainly die.

He glanced at the bun-haired girl not far away, and killing intent flared in his eyes.

The bun-haired girl had just lowered her price several times in a row, but seeing that Wang Jue still refused to acknowledge her, she seemed to lose interest and fell silent.

At that moment, she rested her chin in her hand, as if daydreaming, and did not pay any attention to the malicious look Wu Lei was giving her.

Wu Lei looked away, then stared back at Wang Jue with ferocious ruthlessness. "Kid, this is your doing!"

He had already decided to unleash his trump card.

The next instant, black, irregular lines suddenly surfaced across Wu Lei's upper body and spread all over him.

His aura surged violently, as though he had transformed into a humanoid beast radiating an utterly savage and ferocious presence.

Wang Jue narrowed his eyes and immediately sensed that something was wrong with Wu Lei.

Even the bun-haired girl on the nearby tree was abruptly jolted awake.

Recognizing, perhaps, the trump card Wu Lei had used, she could not help but part her lips, her expression a complicated tangle of surprise, shock, and uncertainty.

Roar!

At that moment, Wu Lei suddenly let out a roar that sounded almost animalistic.