Republic of China Era: Entering the Dao through Divine Strike.

The rapier thrust out silently, its tip aimed at the disciple's cervical spine.

The White Demon never gives any warning when he draws his sword; there is no sound of wind, no flash of light, only a very thin emerald green streak that flashes and disappears in the air.

The disciple wouldn't die immediately after the sword strike, but he would be paralyzed and forced to watch helplessly as his body rotted away, suffering unbearable pain.

The disciple was completely unaware, holding his sword in one hand and staring at the Qing soldiers' spear formation charging towards him. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up slightly from the white ghost's sword energy, but he mistook it for the night wind.

Lu Changming saw it.

However, he was knocked back three steps by Chang Yushan, and his back had just hit the earthen wall. His right arm was still numb, so there was no time to help him.

He simply shouted sternly, "Beware of the Soul-Chasing Thorn behind you!"

Sun Liancheng also saw it and turned his gun towards Bai Gui, but Bai Gui was too fast and the gun could not catch up with the gray shadow that drifted along the ground.

The white ghost's rapier was less than three inches from the disciple's nape.

Lu Changming roared and rushed forward with all his might, but Chang Yushan's axe had already cleaved down first, blocking all his rescue routes.

He watched helplessly as the emerald green sword light pierced towards the back of his disciple's neck, his pupils shrinking sharply.

The sword light stopped.

A hand reached out from behind the white ghost and grabbed his wrist, which was holding the sword.

The white ghost's pupils constricted sharply...

Throughout his life, he had experienced countless battles, and there had never been anyone who could silently circle behind him after he drew his sword.

He didn't even feel anyone breathing behind him, heard footsteps, or hear the wind rustling his clothes.

The hand seemed to emerge from the darkness out of thin air, its five fingers gripping his wrist. The grip wasn't strong, but it was so precise it was as if it had been measured with a ruler, hitting the most vulnerable point of his wrist joint, rendering his entire arm powerless.

In that instant, the White Ghost heard a sound—his own heartbeat.

This was the first time since his debut that he had heard his own heartbeat during a battle.

The white ghost suddenly turned around.

He saw a young man in a blue robe. Moonlight shone from behind the young man, shrouding his entire face in shadow, leaving only his eyes visible.

There was no anger or murderous intent in his eyes, only a calm that seemed to have already been given its sentence.

Then he heard a dull thud behind him.

Chang Yushan has fallen.

He lay face up on the stone slab at the alley entrance, a bloody hole the size of a finger between his eyebrows, running from his brow to the back of his head.

The axe lay beside him, the blood mist on its blade still lingering, but the man was no longer moving.

He stared, mouth agape, making hoarse sounds as if he wanted to say something. The hoarse sounds quickly stopped.

From the moment Li Xin fell to the moment Chang Yushan collapsed, no one saw what happened.

Lu Changming only saw a blurry green shadow pass by Chang Yushan before the fat, dark-skinned man collapsed.

The axe in his hand, covered in bits of flesh, only managed to strike a faint, indistinct shadow.

The calm on Bai Gui's face finally shattered as he looked at Chang Yushan's corpse.

Fear welled up from those deep-set eyes.

He served as a court official in the Ministry of Justice for three years and had seen countless masters, but none of them could kill Chang Yushan in a single move.

He didn't even see how the other person made their move.

He suddenly swung his wrist, and the bones of his entire right arm made a series of cracking sounds as his fingers slipped from between Li Xin's five fingers like snakes.

This is his trump card, a technique that allows him to break free from any grappling method.

The fingers had just slipped out of their restraints.

The white ghost suddenly felt a chill on the back of his neck.

The hand came up again, this time around the neck.

The white ghost's hair stood on end, and the skin on his back was tingled with goosebumps by an invisible killing intent.

He heard a voice behind him, very soft, as if talking to himself.

"Soul-Chasing Thorn? That's quite a grand name."

A sharp pain in my neck, accompanied by a cracking sound...

His head was held by a hand and turned halfway around, so that his face was facing backward instead of forward.

He saw his own back, the torches at the alley entrance, Chang Yushan's body lying in a pool of blood, and the matchlock guns still burning.

His eyes were still open, but his pupils were slowly dilating.

At the last moment, what was reflected in the image was a moon half-hidden by clouds.

Li Xin released his grip...

The white ghost's head drooped at an eerie angle on his shoulders, and his whole body collapsed limply to the ground.

The rapier of the Soul-Chasing Thorn rolled out from between his loosened fingers, the corpse poison on the tip still emitting emerald green smoke, seeping into the cracks in the stone slabs.

The twenty-odd gunmen finally realized what was happening.

Some frantically loaded ammunition, some threw away their matchlock guns and drew their sabers, and some turned and ran...

Li Xin did not give them another chance to fire.

With a gentle flick of his left hand at his waist, more than ten finger-length steel needles silently slid into his fingers, gleaming with a cold light under the moonlight, as if they had appeared out of thin air in his hand.

With a slight flick of the wrist, the steel needle drew out more than ten extremely fine silver lines in the torchlight...

It was as if the moonlight had suddenly shattered into a dozen pieces.

The Qing soldiers at the forefront suddenly stopped, each with a tiny red dot between their eyebrows. They collapsed to the ground as if their bones had been removed.

The knives and spears slipped from between the loosened fingers and bounced a few times on the stone slab.

The gunman behind him had just finished loading his ammunition and looked up when, before he could even steady his gun, more than ten steel needles flew towards him.

The steel needles pierced their throats, and the true energy attached to the needle tips shattered their throats and vocal cords together.

After the gunman fell, the Qing soldiers at the alley entrance began to rush forward and encircle him.

Suddenly, the flash of blades spread like water...

The buzzing sound was incessant.

Swordsmen and spearmen fell in droves, like seedlings cut down by a sickle.

In less than ten breaths, the torches at the alley entrance were still burning, but there wasn't a single Qing soldier left standing.

The ground was littered with corpses, and blood seeped into the drainage ditch through the cracks in the stone slabs, turning the rainwater in the ditch a dark red.

Li Xin stood amidst the corpses, shook the blood off his sword, and sheathed it.

Not a single drop of blood stained his blue robe. The moonlight shone on him, clearly illuminating the curve of his clothes as the night wind blew them.

A gust of wind blew by, and the person floated up silently, landing lightly on the opposite rooftop like a feather.

A piece of broken tile on the eaves was loosened by the wind and slid off at an angle.

It rolled over in the moonlight, fell to the ground, and shattered in two.

Lu Changming looked up as the blue figure was swallowed by the night, his heart filled with shock.

He had worked as a bodyguard at Yuanshun Escort Agency for twenty years, traveling all over the country and seeing countless masters, but he had never seen anyone pierce through armor with a long sword so easily.

The alleyway fell silent again.

The torches were still burning, and the smell of pine resin mixed with the stench of blood permeated the narrow alley.

Lu Changming stood there, holding the knife, his mouth agape, unable to close it for a long time.

The four disciples behind him were all stunned, and the injured one even forgot that his shoulder was still bleeding.

Sun Liancheng held the long sword upside down, leaning it against the ground. His hand was still trembling, but his eyes were frighteningly bright.

He knew who was coming.

So imposing, so menacing.

Who else in this world can do that?

“That’s Master Li! I knew he wouldn’t abandon us.”

Lu Changming remained silent.

He couldn't see the person's face clearly; the other person came and went like a phantom, and in just a few breaths, they had already killed almost everyone.

He had actually seen such skill before.

It feels like just yesterday that we fought side by side, and when we met again, Li Xin was already stronger than a human.

"With such a remarkable person in charge of the capital, how can the world not be at peace?"

……

This is what Wang Wu saw when he crawled out of the ventilation duct.

The ground was littered with corpses, matchlock guns broken in two, and steel needles still stuck in the throats of Qing soldiers.

Lu Changming and his four disciples stood at the alley entrance, all in a daze. Their wounds hadn't been bandaged yet, but they seemed to have forgotten the pain.

The first thing Wang Wu saw was blood. The stone slab at the alley entrance was covered in blood, which was flowing into the drainage ditch from the cracks in the stone, forming a shallow puddle.

Then he saw Chang Yushan's corpse, Bai Gui's corpse, and Qing soldiers lying scattered all over the ground.

His knife was still slung over his back, his fingers unconsciously gripping the hilt.

He had this knife with him for decades and had gripped it countless times, but he had never gripped it so tightly before. His knuckles cracked, and he didn't even realize it.

He had fought against Chang Yushan's Heart-Eating Black Fiend Technique.

Three years ago, he exchanged a palm strike outside the Ministry of Justice prison. At that time, his opponent fled far away, and he retreated three steps. His tiger's mouth was burned by blood poison and he had to recuperate for half a month.

He had also experienced the White Demon's Soul-Chasing Stab before.

He dodged the sword thrust from behind using his bone-shrinking technique. The tip of the sword grazed the skin on the back of his neck, leaving a scar that still itches on cloudy days.

He was confident he could withstand fifty moves without defeat against the two of them working together, but he knew it would be difficult to win.

The two bodies were lying at the alley entrance; one had a bloody hole between his eyebrows, and the other had his neck twisted halfway.

It seems he died in a very hasty manner.

In particular, the white ghost's eyes looked like he had seen a ghost.

Clearly, he couldn't imagine that there were experts in the world whom he had no chance against.

Wang Wu stumbled back a step and bumped his back against the wall.

The coolness of the wall tiles seeped into his skin through his shirt, and he realized that he was covered in cold sweat.

His gaze shifted from Chang Yushan's corpse to Bai Gui's corpse, and then from Bai Gui's corpse to Lu Changming's face.

My junior brother's right arm was still trembling, and the dark red blood spots on the back of his hand had not yet faded.

The disciple who had been shot in the shoulder leaned against the wall, his face deathly pale, half of his body stained red with blood.

Just now, the white ghost's sword was only three feet away from piercing the back of his neck.

If Li Xin had arrived even a moment later tonight, the people lying at the alley entrance now wouldn't be Chang Yushan and Bai Gui, but Lu Changming and his four disciples.

Wang Wu's Adam's apple bobbed.

"Xin-ge'er has been here?"

"Yes, Chief Escort." Sun Liancheng's voice was still trembling. "If it weren't for him, we would be in danger."

Wang Wu looked down at Chang Yushan's corpse, then looked up at the empty rooftop across the way.

There was nothing on the roof except a broken tile lying askew on the eaves, its white surface illuminated by the moonlight.

Wang Wu remained silent for a while, then patted Lu Changming on the shoulder.

"Let's go back to the escort agency."

Lu Changming nodded. The group, supporting each other, disappeared into the alleyway.

The torches behind them were still burning, the smell of pine resin mixed with the stench of blood carried away by the night wind...