’That beast, Fu Jinqian?’
Lu Yun’s face remained calm and impassive when he heard the name. Having lived two lives and weathered countless storms over the years, he wasn’t one to so easily trust someone else’s word.
Especially the "one-sided story" of a ruthless, lying, opportunistic gang leader like Xu Fei?
You’d have to put a big question mark over every word that came out of Xu Fei’s mouth.
’Who knows if this isn’t just his attempt to shift the blame and use me to kill someone for him.’
However, even if Xu Fei hadn’t said anything, Lu Yun would have found a good time to slaughter Fu Jinqian anyway.
After all, his feud with Fu Jinqian—that conscienceless beast who specialized in human trafficking—went back many years.
If he hadn’t been old and frail back then, and if Fu Jinqian hadn’t been under the protection of the Wa Country consulate, Lu Yun would have personally sent that beast to hell long ago!
Having broken through to the Huajin Realm and with the Extreme Blue Martial Arts Modifier in hand, the killing intent that had lain dormant in Lu Yun for so many years was gradually reawakening.
"Fu Jinqian... the Wa Country consulate..."
Back when the Yin Dynasty had not yet completely collapsed, the nation’s gates were blasted open by the sturdy ships and powerful cannons of the Western powers. The Wa Country’s influence also took the opportunity to infiltrate.
These Wa Country devils, relying on the overwhelming advantage of their firearms, burned, killed, and plundered their way through Yun Port City and other coastal areas, committing every imaginable evil.
Some even secretly conducted inhumane and appalling "experiments." The crimes of these Wa Country devils were too numerous to count.
Thirty-five years ago, Lu Yun was just a hot-blooded young Martial Artist.
He had not yet earned a title in the martial examinations at that time. Faced with the atrocities of the Wa Country marauders, Lu Yun, filled with righteous fury and relying on his skills, had infiltrated the Wa Country’s garrisons many times at night to carry out assassinations and sabotage. He had the blood of many Wa Country devils on his hands.
However, the cruel reality of the situation quickly sobered him.
Before organized, well-equipped armies and secret service organizations that also had Ninjas and bizarre shikigami, his individual martial strength was too insignificant, too powerless.
Lu Yun had survived several deadly encirclements and pursuits. He had witnessed the terrifying power of new heavy weaponry, experienced the elusive assassination techniques of Wa Country Ninjas, and faced the hair-raising, bizarre power of their shikigami.
A man’s strength has its limits.
After one last desperate situation where he nearly lost his life, Lu Yun became afraid.
There is great terror between life and death. He was only human, and he too feared dying.
Lu Yun felt he had already done his best. He had risked his life, fought, and killed hundreds of Wa Country marauders. He had done right by his conscience and by this land.
Moreover, what made Lu Yun feel helpless and despairing was that he knew better than anyone: even if he could reach a higher Martial Arts Realm in the future, such as a Grandmaster of Huajin or even the legendary levels beyond... when facing a war machine built with the full power of the Wa Country—with its planes, heavy artillery, warships, and organized modern armies—an individual’s power was still like a mantis trying to stop a chariot. It was a complete overestimation of one’s own strength.
No matter how high your martial skill, could you be faster than machine gun fire? Could you withstand an artillery bombardment? Could you fly into the sky to take down a plane?
This realization led him to choose a more realistic path back then.
He would earn an official title, establish a foothold in the chaotic world, protect his own life and the lives of those around him, and only then consider other things.
In Lu Yun’s eyes, neither the Yin Dynasty nor the Daxia New Country was worth a damn.
The Daxia New Country had, in name, overthrown the corrupt former dynasty and established a new, independent, and strong nation.
But thirty years had passed, and anyone with eyes could see that its so-called "independence" and "sovereignty" were still fragile and constrained at every turn.
The nation’s political, economic, and military lifelines were still largely influenced by the Western Countries and the ambitious Wa Country devils right at their doorstep.
Those high-and-mighty Western consuls and Wa Country military attachés acted like local emperors within the concessions.
Their will was often more effective than an official decree from the Daxia New Country’s capital in Yanjing City.
Many of those in power in the Daxia New Country’s court were completely spineless. To maintain superficial "diplomatic relations" and "stability," and to seize personal benefits, they bowed and scraped to outsiders. The Western devils or Wa Country devils only needed to apply a little pressure—casually voicing a few words of "concern" or "dissatisfaction"—and that bunch at the top would immediately rush to compromise and retreat.
They wouldn’t even hesitate to sacrifice the interests, dignity, and even the lives of their own citizens to satisfy the unreasonable demands of these foreign devils in exchange for a moment of "peace."
Lu Yun saw this all too clearly, which was one of the reasons he had chosen to focus on self-preservation back then.
However, times were different now.
Having broken through to become a Grandmaster of Huajin, and especially with a heaven-defying opportunity like the Extreme Blue Martial Arts Modifier in his hands, Lu Yun’s confidence had undergone a world-shaking transformation.
He could see a greater, more distant possibility—a path leading to the apex of individual power, one that might even transcend the limits of mortal understanding.
’As long as I don’t die, time is on my side.’
Although Lu Yun didn’t know what lay beyond the Grandmaster of Huajin Realm.
The world’s Martial Arts heritage seemed to have been fractured. Records of higher Realms were few and far between, mostly existing in orally transmitted secret histories or as fragments in dusty old tomes.
He vaguely remembered some extremely ancient, almost mythical legends.
In the vast empire that existed before the Yin Dynasty—the era five hundred years ago when the world was unified under the so-called "Zulong Dynasty"—there seemed to have been a power system completely different from today’s.
Back then, there were "Dragon Veins" that sustained the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. There were "Qi Refiners" and "Alchemists" who lived on mist and dew in their pursuit of longevity. Legendary feats like flying through the air, tunneling through the earth, and summoning wind and rain were said to have occurred.
However, legend has it that before the ancestors of the Yin Dynasty crossed the pass and seized the world, they secretly "severed" the "Dragon Veins" that sustained the realm.
From then on, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth gradually faded. "The connection between heaven and earth was severed." The legacies of Qi Refiners and Alchemists were cut off, and the age of myths came to a complete end.
Only then did Martial Arts, which focused on honing the physical body, gradually become the mainstream path on this land.
These legends were too ancient and fantastical, making it difficult to discern their truth.
Of course, if the higher Realms of legend truly existed, then with the Extreme Blue Martial Arts Modifier, Lu Yun had a chance to reach that long-forgotten, mythical domain!
Although the glorious age of Qi Cultivators, or Alchemists, had long since passed into legend, there were still some beings on this land of lingering mysteries who walked a similar path.
These were the Warlocks.
However, their current situation was far more miserable than that of Martial Artists like Lu Yun, who purely honed their physical bodies and condensed their internal energy.
One could even say that these miserable Warlocks couldn’t hold a candle to even a single toe of the legendary Qi Cultivators.
What these Warlocks controlled were merely the scraps and dregs left behind by those glorious beings of the past.
Furthermore, they had to bear an unbearable price for it.

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