Du Long's triumphant expression gradually faded away.
No matter the old man behind him who had risen again, or the burly man walking towards him, both made Du Long increasingly feel that this small town was a bit eerie.
Looking at those people standing by the roadside, their faces wearing eerie smiles as they watched him.
Suddenly, Du Long could hardly hold his gun steady.
"Boss, this, this place... seems a bit off..." His underling's concerned words actually calmed Du Long down a little.
That's right, he still had around 180 men behind him!
No sweat!
Du Long glanced at the old man he had just shot, who had stood up from the ground, but showed no intention of attacking him.
Compared to the old man, the burly man walking towards him posed a greater threat in Du Long's eyes!
Click—
Du Long tilted his head and swapped a new magazine into his rifle!
"Take down that dumb big guy!"
At Du Long's command, the entire mercenary convoy opened fire!
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat—
Countless bullets with bright tracer lines sped towards the approaching Niu Ben wielding a spiked club!
Clang clang clang clang!!
But what made these mercenaries gawk was that every single bullet that hit Niu Ben's body sparked a burst of fire!
"Heh heh..."
"Even if Dr. Lu doesn't operate on me, your toys can't hurt me!"
On the other side, Niu Ben, whose muscles had turned metallic, lowered the spiked club from his shoulder and accelerated into a run, dragging his feet on the ground!
Weighing nearly 300 pounds originally, after his entire muscular body turned metallic, Niu Ben's weight instantly exceeded one ton!
Thump, thump, thump—
With each step Niu Ben took, he left a deep footprint on the ground behind him!
Seeing this, the mercenaries gulped!
Some of the more cowardly ones had already quietly tried to pull open the doors of the armored vehicles!
But Du Long didn't panic too much, for he was an ability user himself.
Du Long calmly set down his rifle, taking off his camouflage T-shirt to reveal a sinewy, dark body, and stepped to the front of the formation to face the charging Niu Ben!
"Let me see how tough you really are?!"
As the words left his mouth, a vicious grin spread across Du Long's face!
Then, he took a sumo wrestler's starting stance, stomped hard on the ground, and charged at Niu Ben!
When the two neared each other, Niu Ben swung his spiked club at Du Long, but Du Long deftly sidestepped and grappled the arm holding the club!
Sizzle—
Instantly, white smoke arose from Niu Ben's arm!
At that moment, Niu Ben's eyes went wide, as if shocked by what was happening!
Du Long was very pleased with this effect and tightened his grip on Niu Ben's arm!
Sizzle—
The white smoke intensified!
And Niu Ben's arm was gradually being corroded!
Strong acid corrosion!
This was Du Long's ability!
Seeing the big guy in front of him harmed by his own power, Du Long became exceptionally excited!
The feeling of conquering a powerful ability user by his own hand was irresistible to the bloodthirsty mercenary!
But soon Du Long realized something was off!
He felt the brawny arm he was grappling gradually becoming thicker and harder!
And the steel-like muscles he had already corroded were slowly regenerating!
He looked up at Niu Ben to find his eyes had turned blazing red!
The bloodthirsty, frenzied look flickering in them would chill anyone to the bone!
Niu Ben's other hand swiftly grabbed at Du Long, but Du Long agilely tried to dodge!
But before he could move, Niu Ben's iron grip had seized him firmly!
Du Long found it hard to comprehend how such a huge bulk could move with such nimbleness?!
"If I didn't know Dr. Lu would like you, you'd be a splatter of meat pulp right now!"
Niu Ben said in a slow voice, then flung his arm forcefully, and swish—
Du Long was hurled like a bowling ball, rolling a long distance across the ground!
Crack—
Crack—
Crack—
The sound of snapping bones rang out repeatedly as Du Long rolled!
This was Niu Ben holding back a bit of his strength!
Finally, Du Long stopped rolling and lay motionless on the ground, alive or dead, it wasn't clear.
Niu Ben turned to face the remaining 180 or so mercenaries and flashed a slight smile.
When this one-ton steel man charged into their ranks, those guns and grenades became meaningless.
Swinging his spiked club in a sweeping arc took down a whole row!
Niu Ben swung his club down hard on an armored SUV, WHAM!!
The SUV's four tires exploded instantly from the impact, and the whole vehicle slammed down low to the ground!
Some mercenaries turned to flee, but Niu Ben grabbed an armored sedan with one hand and flung it violently towards the road ahead!
CRASH!
The sedan rolled over several times after landing, and no one dared run anymore.
Niu Ben strode into the mercenary crowd, clutching his spiked club, and bellowed in his slow voice, "Anti-vice raid!"
"Everyone get down on your knees! Hands on your head!"
With that, he swung his club at a mercenary trying to throw a grenade at him!
SPLAT!
That mercenary's head was smashed into a pulp by Niu Ben's club!
"Anyone who doesn't get down, I'll smash their head in!"
Seeing their lively comrade turned into a headless corpse in mere seconds, the mercenaries obediently got down on their knees in rows along the roadside, hands on heads.
Niu Ben's big brass bell-like eyes scanned over the mercenaries and he barked, "Stay down! Anyone moves, I smash them!"
Then Niu Ben glanced behind him as Dr. Lu Yuan walked over in his white lab coat.
The tardy Dr. Lu looked at Du Long lying motionless on the ground with concern and asked, "Brother, can you still live?"
Du Long remained silent, only twitching a finger slightly.
"Oh, looks like there's still hope..."
Dr. Lu said as a sharp surgical knife appeared in his hand.
With a casual flick—
The blade cleanly sliced through Du Long's carotid artery.
After finishing, Dr. Lu stood up and glanced at the crowd by the roadside.
Immediately, the onlookers shrank back a step in unison.
Dr. Lu frowned, looking down at Du Long's corpse in puzzlement, "What unforgivable crimes did you commit to make everyone so afraid of you?"
"Seems you were guilty of misdeeds."
Then he called out to the crowd, "Who set up the spiked strip on the road to the eastern suburbs?"
Silence fell over the crowd until an employee of the Xia Group stepped forward, "Dr. Lu!"
"It, it was us who set it..."
Dr. Lu pointed back in the direction they came from, "Get the vehicles with flat tires repaired and sent back, and take this too."
He kicked Du Long's body, "Find a vehicle to transport this one back as well."
"Yes, Dr. Lu! We'll have it taken care of promptly!"
"Mm."
After giving those instructions, Dr. Lu walked to the front and asked the crowd, "Who got beaten up earlier?"
The old man Du Long had shot raised his hand trembling.
Seeing the old man's frail, shaking figure, Dr. Lu couldn't help feeling sympathetic.
"Aiya... These people are too brutal, laying hands on an elderly man."
Dr. Lu looked over at Niu Ben's battlefield and said concernedly to the old man, "All right, grandpa, we'll still follow the rules."
"But the one who hit you is useful to me, so I'll take him. As for the dead bodies here, you can take two back however you want to deal with them, okay?"
The old man's face was deathly pale, and his head was nodding like he was pounding garlic. He didn't dare say a word.
Du Long raised two fingers and instructed, "Uncle, remember this well—two of them, and they have to be dead ones, not a single extra one! And don't find any living ones!"
The old man's legs went weak, and he collapsed straight to the ground.
Seeing this, Du Long immediately went to help him up, but by the time he approached, the old man had fainted, his eyes rolling back.
Du Long: "......"
rowess are unmatched, commanding a million-strong army! Yet, the Emperor wants to depose him for the sake of a false prince? Hold on, are you throwing me into some female-oriented romance plot? How can I tolerate this? With a grand wave of his hand—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! Slander the Emperor? Very well, all of you shall die! ... The False Prince: "Although I am not the biological son, Father and Mother love me more. The throne should be mine!" The Female Lead: "Qin Xiao, you are the Emperor, and I am a commoner. If you wish to marry me, you must abdicate. Otherwise, you will never have me!" The Empress: "After we divorce, you must give me half the empire!" The Transmigrator Consort: "You worthless Emperor, why should I kneel to you? All men are equal—I advise you to be kind!" The Great General: "The enemy general is my childhood sweetheart. For her sake, I willingly abandon the frontier defenses!" The Retired Emperor: "Although Yu'er was adopted, I prefer him. Qin Xiao, you should abdicate and let him become Emperor!" ... Very well! So this is how you want to play? Facing this twisted world of female-oriented tropes, Qin Xiao grins and raises his hand to unleash—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! I am the Emperor. Why would I bother reasoning with you? Seal the gates! Leave none alive!
lan, the Luo family, tracked him down - along with the babies in their arms. Mo Xuan stared pensively at the paternity test results from over a dozen top institutions, both domestic and international, showing a 99.99% match between himself and the two baby girls. At 23, Mo Xuan, a doctoral student, had become the father of two three-year-old children. The kicker? The mothers weren't even the same person! He gradually realized he was being lured step by step into an elaborate trap designed by these two yandere sisters. "Be good, little Xuan. Sister's life belongs to you entirely." "Brother, if you try to run away, I'll have no choice but to tie you up." Mo Xuan: "Do whatever you want, ladies. I give up."
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
