“What’s happened?” Li Peak’s face darkened the instant he saw the panicked Black Eagle guard. His voice dropped to a growl.
“Young Master, the base is under attack,” the guard panted. “They’ve already breached the outer cordon.”
“What?” Blood drained from Li Peak’s cheeks. Someone daring to storm his stronghold in broad daylight? The Four Great Clans? Only they would be this brazen.
He strode out, boots hammering concrete. “Status?”
“Grim. They outnumber us, every one a killer. The lads are buckling. Without you, we’ve got thirty minutes, tops.”
Shouts and screams echoed ahead. Li Peak’s face turned iron. He broke into a sprint.
“Dark Tiger, talk to me.” He spotted Dark Tiger streaked with blood, brow creasing. If even Dark Tiger was wounded, these were no ordinary raiders.
“Young Master!” Relief flooded Dark Tiger’s eyes. With Li Peak here, the whole Black Eagle squad was worth a legion.
“Know who they are?” Li Peak scanned the black-clad tide smashing against his defences. Drilled, lethal, seamless. Not street muscle.
“No idea, but this is only one wave,” Dark Tiger said.
“One wave?” Li Peak’s brows knotted. “How many groups?”
“Two. Sky Wolf’s holding the rear. If the base weren’t a fortress and they didn’t know the layout, we’d already be overrun.”
“Casualties?”
“Two brothers down.” Dark Tiger’s voice cracked.
Li Peak’s eyes flashed arctic. Each Black Eagle had cost him tens of millions to forge. Two dead was a gut punch.
A heartbeat of regret, if he hadn’t lingered over Dragon Roar Palm, they might still breathe.
“Dark Tiger, take a squad, reinforce Sky Wolf. Leave one fire-team. This line is mine.”
“Yes, sir!” Dark Tiger vanished with his men.
“You’re all dead.” Murder blazed in Li Peak’s pupils. He shot forward like a released arrow.
BANG! BANG!
Two palms slammed into black-clad chests. The men flew, coughing blood.
“Who the hell are you?” the others barked, circling warily.
A bearded giant glared. “Identify yourself!”
Li Peak answered with motion, a blur through the pack. Palms rose, bodies fell.
“Damn you!” The giant roared, charging. His fist tore air.
“Postnatal fourth-layer?” Li Peak’s eyebrow arched. Not common cannon fodder. Four Great Clans, had to be.
Or perhaps the eight top clans flooding Tianhai for the ruins, or the hidden sects. But so many masked troops? Only locals could muster this swarm without the Four Clans noticing.
Didn’t matter. They had killed his men. None would leave upright.
WHOOSH!
Li Peak met the giant fist with his own. Sonic crack. The giant coughed crimson, rocketing backward.
“Impossible!” the man wheezed.
Li Peak was already airborne. “Die.”
“LI PEAK, FREEZE!” A bellow thundered. Crushing pressure rolled over him, Postnatal seventh-layer.
Li Peak ignored it. His palm crashed down.
CRUNCH!
The giant’s ribcage exploded. Dead before he landed.
The newcomer materialised, a middle-aged martial artist, face winter-cold. “I said stop. Deaf?”
“And you are?” Frost laced Li Peak’s stare.
“The man who ends you.” The middle-aged killer smiled like a wolf.
“Come try.” Li Peak stamped the ground and vanished.
“Die!” The man’s fist detonated forward.
BAM!
Shockwaves rippled. Li Peak’s arm numbed, qi churning. The killer staggered back five paces, face cycling red and white.
“As expected, realm not fully settled,” Li Peak noted coolly. At sixth-layer Qi Refining he should crush a seventh-layer Postnatal. The rushed breakthrough left hairline cracks.
Perfect. This corpse-to-be would help him temper the realm solid.
“Impossible!” the killer roared. “A twenty-year-old out-muscling me?”
Fists blurred. The pair traded thunderclaps, shockwaves flattening grass.
The longer they fought, the stronger Li Peak grew, breath steady, power climbing.
“How?” Panic flickered in the killer’s eyes. At this rate he’d be the one buried.
“Can’t let him live.” Resolve hardened. “Talent like this dies today. Experience is my edge.”
He feinted retreat.
“Running?” Li Peak laughed, giving chase. Freshly stabilised, he was eager to blood-test the realm.
“None of you leave alive,” he whispered. Two Black Eagles outweighed every corpse here.
The killer halted, stamped, and soared like an eagle, qi funnelled into one murderous dive.
Li Peak’s momentum carried him forward, back exposed.
A cruel grin split the killer’s face. His fist, carrying every drop of true qi, kissed Li Peak’s spine.
“Today you die, boy. Too green for—”
BOOM!
A dragon roar split the heavens. Li Peak spun mid-air, right palm meeting the dive head-on.
Dragon Roar Palm, first layer, crude but unleashed.
The killer’s eyes bulged. His arm disintegrated to the elbow, body catapulted like a broken kite, smashing through three trees before cratering the earth.
Li Peak landed light as a cat. Blood trickled from his lip, yet his eyes blazed with laughter.
“Consolidation complete.”
He turned to the stunned black-clads.
“Next.”
