Chapter 13: So Fragile

The gaunt middle-aged man, also carrying an iron bow and dressed as a hunter, paused in surprise when he saw Lu Yan. His gaze was quickly drawn to the fiery red leaves of the Scarlet Blade.

“So many Scarlet Blade leaves.”

His eyes burned with greed, though he swiftly concealed it. Lu Yan gripped his iron bow, staring intently at the man, ready for anything. Though the stranger was thin, his steps were light and his presence hidden, exuding a sense of danger greater than that of a tiger.

This was a martial artist who had broken through his limits.

“Ha! No need to be nervous, young man. I mean no harm,” the thin man said with a hearty laugh, raising his hands and stepping back. “You’re quite impressive to have found such hidden Scarlet Blade leaves. Don’t worry—there are rules among our kind, and among leaf hunters, whoever finds the Scarlet Blade first gets to keep it. I’ll take my leave now.”

With that, he retreated a dozen meters and turned as if to go.

Yet in the instant he turned, he whipped out his iron bow, nocked an arrow in a smooth, practiced motion, and spun to shoot at Lu Yan.

But before he could loose his arrow, he saw another arrow whistling straight for his throat.

Startled, the thin man threw himself to the side, narrowly dodging the attack.

“Crafty little brat!” he snarled, his eyes filled with murderous intent as he fired an arrow at Lu Yan.

“Likewise,” Lu Yan replied, shooting an arrow as he spoke.

These Scarlet Blade leaves were worth at least three hundred taels of silver. For such a prize, and with the opponent being a powerful martial artist who had retreated so easily, something was off.

When things don’t add up, there’s always a catch. So Lu Yan had chosen to strike first.

Their arrows collided midair and fell to the ground.

They both loosed a second arrow in quick succession, but Lu Yan was markedly faster. His arrow, like a shooting star, locked onto the man’s throat, causing the opponent’s second shot to veer wildly off course.

The man was forced to block with his iron bow, managing to deflect Lu Yan’s arrow.

“Young man, you’re quite the archer for someone your age,” the thin man cursed, tossing aside his bow and lunging at Lu Yan like a leopard.

Lu Yan’s face remained expressionless as he drew and fired three arrows in rapid succession, each one targeting a vital point: the center of the brow, the throat, and the heart.

“Axe-Palm!”

The man’s hands turned black as iron, and he chopped at the arrows, shattering all three in midair.

“Ordinary archery is just that—ordinary. Without channeling vital energy, arrows do little against a martial artist who’s broken his limits,” Lu Yan thought, sighing inwardly.

If only he’d mastered the Way of the Bow, the outcome would have been different. He remembered the arrows fired by the Liu Clan’s martial guards the night before—so powerful they could pierce even the profound defenses of a martial spirit, shattering metal and stone.

“Die, boy!”

Having shattered the arrows, the man closed in, leaping high and bringing his palm down at Lu Yan’s head with absolute confidence.

Axe-Palm, a third-rate martial art, hardened the hands like iron blades and axes. He had practiced it for thirty years. Although his talent was limited and perfection unattainable, he had refined it to the peak of mastery. He didn’t believe a mere youth could withstand it.

This blow, he was sure, would split Lu Yan’s skull.

“Second limit broken.”

Lu Yan’s heart stirred. With his opponent attacking with full force, the surge of vital energy made his cultivation apparent.

This was Lu Yan’s first time facing a martial artist who had broken his limits, and at the same level as himself. He dared not be careless. He marshaled his energy, activating the Iron Thread Fist.

Vital energy surged, flowing into all 288 tributaries in his hands. Black lines appeared across his palms.

Bang!

Lu Yan struck with all his might, fist colliding with the man’s iron-hard palm.

Crack!

At the moment of impact, the man’s palm twisted grotesquely, bones shattering into a dozen pieces.

Staggering back, the man’s face contorted with agony.

With a single blow, Lu Yan forced him back. Like a tiger emerging from the mountains, he pressed his advantage, launching another powerful punch.

“You can’t kill me, I am—” the man shouted in terror.

But Lu Yan’s fist drove through his chest, bursting out the other side in a spray of blood and bone.

The man convulsed and died instantly.

“I know—you’re a dead man,” Lu Yan said coldly, withdrawing his fist, feeling a wave of nausea.

He had underestimated his own strength; the man had been even weaker than expected. If he had known, he would have held back.

This taught Lu Yan a lesson: even among third-rate martial arts, the difference in mastery could be immense.

Both of them had broken the limit twice, with similar levels of energy, but the Iron Thread Fist, mastered to the point of perfection, utterly dominated the man’s refined but unremarkable Axe-Palm.

It wasn’t that the Iron Thread Fist was inherently stronger—just that his proficiency was deeper.

Before reaching perfection, each level of Iron Thread Fist increased in power by about twenty percent, assuming vital energy remained the same. Breaking through to perfection increased its power by thirty percent, and reaching the point of mastery added another thirty percent.

Thus, Lu Yan’s Iron Thread Fist was more than sixty percent stronger than his opponent’s technique.

He wiped the blood from his hands on the grass, then searched the man’s body.

He found two silver notes, each for fifty taels, along with some loose silver—one hundred and ten taels in total, which he pocketed without hesitation.

He also discovered a thumb-sized, dull gray orb made of a material neither gold nor jade.

As Lu Yan touched the orb, the Dao Book in his mind began to flicker violently, exuding a sense of longing—a desire to consume the orb.

Yes, to eat it.

Lu Yan was astonished.

The Dao Book had never reacted this way before.

He tried to communicate with the Dao Book. In the next moment, a light shone from his brow, and the phantom of the Dao Book appeared.

Swish!

The orb in his hand turned to light and vanished into the Dao Book’s phantom, which then disappeared.

At that moment, the Iron Thread Fist avatar, dormant for so long, began to move again, practicing its forms.

“So that orb has such an effect?”

Lu Yan was amazed, then delighted.

Having the Iron Thread Fist avatar active again could only be a good thing.

“I’ll study this later. First, I need to harvest the Scarlet Blade leaves.”

Lu Yan took out a cloth bag, spread it open, and carefully picked the leaves, placing them inside one by one.

When he finished, he weighed the bag—about a pound and a half, worth roughly five hundred taels.

A fortune.

Now, buying a house would be no trouble.

“It’s a pity that once the leaves are picked, the roots wither quickly. Otherwise, I could come back next year,” Lu Yan mused.

The Scarlet Blade was peculiar: once the leaves were harvested, the roots would soon die, making it nearly impossible to gather them from the same spot two years in a row.

Glancing at the thin man’s corpse, Lu Yan debated whether to bury him—not out of kindness, but to destroy the evidence.

But just then, he heard voices approaching from outside the valley.

They were still some distance away, but clearly heading toward the valley.

“Are they his accomplices? There’s no time.”

Lu Yan abandoned the idea of burying the body, left the valley at once, and moved away from the approaching voices.

Shortly after, several men dressed as hunters entered the valley and found the corpse.

“Fang Rong is dead—his chest pierced with a single punch. What power,” an old man said, bending to inspect the body.

“Can you tell what martial art was used?” asked a burly man with a bristling beard.

“There are many fist techniques, and Fang Rong’s chest is badly damaged, making it hard to tell. Wait—his right hand is severely fractured, and there are marks,” the old man said, lifting the mangled hand. “There are faint lines on his palm, as if it was bound by iron wire.”

“These marks are characteristic of the third-rate martial art, Iron Thread Fist,” the old man declared.

“Iron Thread Fist?” the bearded man asked. “As far as I know, no one in Changfeng City practices Iron Thread Fist.”

“It’s widespread. In Wo Ye City, Qingfeng Prefecture, there’s a martial hall that specializes in it,” the old man replied.

“Master Wu, you are indeed knowledgeable. With the disasters and bandits plaguing Qingfeng Prefecture, it’s no surprise if a martial artist from there has wandered into Changfeng City,” the bearded man said.

They searched the area and soon found the roots of the Scarlet Blade.

“Murder and theft, and now they’ve crossed the Wu clan. They must have a death wish,” the bearded man said, his voice full of murderous intent.

“Fang Rong’s body is still warm—the culprit can’t have gone far. Spread the word: search for anyone with Scarlet Blade leaves. This batch should weigh about a pound and a half. With this detail, it shouldn’t be hard to find,” the old man ordered.