The Martial God who started at Mantuo Manor

Page 135

His movements remained unhurried and deliberate, exuding a certain unsettling composure.

Bend the bow and nock the arrow.

The bowstring was pulled to its fullest extent, producing a soft, tense "hum".

He wasn't aiming at any corner where the enemy might be hiding, but at an ordinary sack on a pile of goods in the distance.

"Whoosh!"

The bowstring snapped, and the iron arrow transformed into a streak of black light, tearing through the blood-soaked air. With a whistling sound, it pierced the heart of the sack with unerring accuracy!

"Pfft!"

With a muffled thud, the sack was easily pierced.

However, what flowed from the tear in the hole created by the arrow was not the expected white and round grains of rice.

Or rather... not entirely.

After a small handful of rice had flowed through.

It was a thin, grayish-white, lifeless stream.

"Crash..."

Countless cold, round pebbles poured out from the burlap sack, rolling over the mountain of "staff" before finally falling to the ground, mingling with the dark red, still-uncongealed pool of blood, producing a series of teeth-grinding, crisp clattering sounds.

The entire warehouse remained eerily silent.

Wang Meng's lips finally curled into a cold, mocking smile.

"really."

He muttered to himself, his voice filled with the expected disdain.

"Little tricks."

He casually tossed the longbow to a maid beside him, as if discarding a useless toy.

The security here is much tighter than I imagined.

However, most of the grain was replaced with stones.

This means... it's actually a trap.

A trap designed to lure you in.

Just as Wang Meng had thought, the power of the canal gang at the docks was far more than just the nearly one hundred people in the warehouse.

Just as he fired an arrow and set the gate ablaze, more than 500 elite members of the Canal Gang, personally led by Feng Xifan, had already silently crept in from all directions like water ghosts in the darkness, surrounding the entire Warehouse Area No. 3 and forming an impenetrable iron barrel formation.

Unfortunately... the person who set this trap never dreamed that the one who stepped into it would not be a lone swordsman, but an "army" armed with crossbows and poison needle launchers!

In particular, these maids are all old people in the manor. They were adopted by Li Qingluo when she was a child and carefully selected and taught martial arts in the Langhuan Jade Cave.

Although none of them individually reached the true first-class innate realm, they all stepped into the last three levels of the acquired realm.

With hundreds of people working together in perfect harmony, and equipped with top-notch, cost-no-object gear, even ordinary peak-stage acquired masters, or even near-innate masters like Ning Zhongze, would only face certain death if surrounded by a multitude of arrows.

Of course, encountering a true innate being like Wang Meng doesn't necessarily guarantee an advantage.

Just like when the members of the Cao Gang shot arrows at him, although he couldn't do what Li Qingluo did, directly knocking away the Murong clan's heavily armored assassins from dozens of meters away, nor could he kill hundreds of people with just sound waves, the area within two or three meters around him was an absolute "vacuum zone" where he could freely release his innate true energy.

Unless it's a heavy crossbow specifically designed for siege warfare, ordinary arrows, crossbow bolts, and hidden weapons like flying needles would never be able to touch his body.

This is the power of the Innate Realm.

At that moment, not far from the dock, in the reeds that were taller than a person, Feng Xifan was pressing his body low to the ground, almost touching the cold, damp mud. Only his pair of hawk-like eyes were visible as he stared intently through the gaps in the reeds at the warehouse in the distance, which was already shrouded in fire and blood.

The hundreds of gang members behind him were already poised to attack, bows drawn and swords unsheathed, waiting only for his command.

However, Feng Xifan delayed issuing the order.

As someone who survived a direct confrontation with the Xuanming Elders, Feng Xifan was naturally a genuine innate master. Otherwise, how could he have kept a large gang of thousands of people in check and firmly held the top position on the Jiangnan waterway?

His hesitation, and the fact that his back was already soaked with cold sweat, stemmed from what he saw... and what he "heard."

He heard the horrific massacre, and heard his own fearless elite troops, whose curses quickly turned into wails, and finally into deathly silence.

The whole process was so fast that even this innate master was terrified.

He saw the man, the man who stood like a demon amidst the flames and corpses.

I saw him shatter the massive ironwood gate that could withstand a thousand-pound ramming with a single palm strike, and I also saw him use an inconceivable, sorcery-like method to make a living person explode into a cloud of blood mist from the inside!

Feng Xifan's pupils shrank to the size of dangerous pinpoints.

This was beyond his understanding of martial arts.

This isn't a slaughter, it's a crushing defeat, it's... a cleansing.

His knuckles were white from gripping the knife hilt so tightly.

He was absolutely certain that with just a single command, the hundreds of archers lying in ambush around the warehouse would instantly unleash thousands of arrows, turning the warehouse and everyone inside into pincushions.

But what about that man?

Feng Xifan had no doubt that the man would survive unharmed the moment the rain of arrows fell.

What he was about to face was a relentless and insane revenge from a true master who had shed all his burdens and was now free from all his hindrances!

Even with Feng Xifan's ruthless nature, he couldn't help but feel a chill run down his spine.

Just then, inside the warehouse, the man seemed to have sensed something. He slowly turned his head and, from a distance of several hundred paces, his gaze precisely fell upon the reed bed where he was hiding.

In that instant, Feng Xifan felt as if his heart was being gripped tightly by an invisible hand!

The other person's eyes were calm and unwavering, devoid of any murderous intent or provocation. Instead, they held a pure indifference, as if looking at an ant on the roadside.

Then, something even more chilling happened. The man, right in his direction, slowly and effortlessly pulled the longbow from his back.

Bend the bow and nock the arrow.

An arrow shot out!

When Feng Xifan saw that what was flowing out of the burlap sack was not entirely rice grains, but mostly cold pebbles, he knew that his trap to lure him in had been exposed.

But Wang Meng's cold, seemingly emotionless command still traveled clearly on the night wind to his ears.

"...A fire burned this place to the ground."

"Too deceiving!"

Feng Xifan gritted his teeth, a surge of bloodlust mixed with humiliation and rage rising straight to the top of his head!

"Boss!"

What are you waiting for!

Give the order!

His trusted aide, unable to contain himself any longer, hissed in a low voice. Feng Xifan stared intently at the man in the distance who had turned away, leaving him with a perfect, unguarded back, his chest heaving violently.

He knew this was the other party's final ultimatum.

The fingers loosened and tightened on the knife handle, then loosened and tightened again.

He gritted his teeth, ready to give orders.

Just then, a burly man ran up to him and whispered something in his ear.

Feng Xifan's expression immediately changed.

He couldn't help but repeat the sentence.

"Lord Qian...is he dead?"

He loosened his grip on the hilt of the broadsword once more.

A look of disbelief flashed in his eyes.

But it quickly turned into fear.

"withdraw!"

"Damn it, if I can't afford to mess with them, can't I at least avoid them?"

"Hide deep in Taihu Lake, retreat!"

"boom!"

Fire borrows the power of wind, and wind aids the power of fire.

The entire massive warehouse was instantly engulfed by an even more intense and violent flame.

The crimson flames shot into the sky, reaching heights of tens of feet, illuminating half of Jiaxing's night sky with a blood-red glow.

The flames on the dock burned all night long.

This fire not only destroyed the largest stronghold of the canal gang in Jiaxing, burning away their last fig leaf, but also destroyed their long-standing reputation that no one dared to provoke on the waterways of Jiangnan.

However, the shock of the towering fire that burned all night at the canal gang's stronghold was completely overshadowed by another, more horrifying and chilling piece of news after dawn the next day.

The news was like the coldest wind, blowing out from the high walls of the prefect's residence at dawn, instantly sweeping through the entire city of Jiaxing, which was still filled with the smell of burning.

More importantly, Qian Muzhi, the prefect of Jiaxing, the official whom the people called their "parent official"—is dead!

When the prefectural magistrate, the vice-prefect, and other officials of Jiaxing Prefecture arrived in a panic, they were all terrified by the bizarre and terrifying scene before them, and were completely at a loss.

The prefect's bedroom was furnished as before, without even a trace of fighting or struggle.

On that luxurious bed made of precious golden nanmu wood, large enough to sleep three or four people, Qian Muzhi, who should have been peacefully awake at this moment, was instead in an extremely contorted and undignified position on the brocade quilt.

He was completely naked, without a single stitch of clothing.

The obese, bloated body, stiffened, retained its final posture before death.

What was even more chilling was that the most experienced coroner in the prefectural office, trembling, examined the man for a full hour, only to arrive at a conclusion that chilled all the officials present to the bone—the prefectural governor's entire body was completely unscathed.

There were no knife wounds, no sword marks, not even a bruise or fingernail mark.

The crevices under the fingernails were clean, and there were no signs of poisoning.

He was alive and well... and died of fright!

The world in Jiaxing has completely changed.

If Qian Muzhi's sudden death was like throwing a boulder into a stagnant pool, stirring up towering waves and endless panic, then...