Chapter 113: Brotherhood

The first sign of loyalty is that when the sect is in trouble you cannot just walk away; you must stand up and treat the sect as family. Nowadays people are not as upright, and such heroes are few, especially low‑rank foot soldiers—just joining a sect to earn a living, not to sell their lives. Only when you reach middle or high ranks, with interests involved, can you truly speak of mixing in the sect's affairs, not merely taking a meal.

Bai Lang now feels that having helped once is enough to repay his debt to the Chang Le Gang; as a low‑rank member, reaching this point is sufficient—though the gang's leaders might not think so…… Bai Lang isn't wielding a weapon; fighting bare‑handed is best—if the opponent is formidable, he can pretend to be a bystander and flee. "Loyalty comes at a price…," Bai Lang mutters, "and brotherhood also has its price…"

Indeed someone was attacking the branch hall, and it seemed they came prepared; the branch hall was already broken. The branch hall leader should be dead, because his body was hanging from the upper floor, limbs motionless, blood dripping down, a large blood mark on his chest. The deputy leader lay on the ground gasping, looking as if he would die any moment. And several senior masters inside the branch hall were nowhere to be seen……

The attack on the branch hall involved a sizable force from the Great River Gate, among which six clearly displayed higher martial skill; two of them were wounded, and several Great River Gate disciples along with the branch hall's dead were set aside. They were now busy cataloguing the treasure and other items they had taken from the branch hall, and Bai Lang's arrival only made a few Great River Gate disciples at the entrance widen their eyes and shout, "Get out!"

"He's from the Chang Le Gang! Take him down!" someone shouted. Bai Lang recognized the voice as a petty thug he had seen before; it turned out to be an undercover of the Great River Gate, and a few others he had also encountered, even some who, like him, were from the Chang Le Gang. "An infiltrator?" Bai Lang sighed, "just a gang fighting for turf……" Yet someone already swung a knife at his head.

"Truly reckless… but I'm the same," Bai Lang didn't dodge or block, letting the knife strike his head. "Useless! You don't even know where to cut; the skull is the hardest part, got it? And this raw external force—how can such a technique be used in public? Cutting is better than stabbing, you know?" Bai Lang muttered inwardly, but when the knife hit his head it only made a clang.

The knife rebounded; the attacker couldn't hold onto it—his tiger‑mouth split, and as he tried to clutch his hand he began to scream. He couldn't scream, because Bai Lang slapped his head into his chest. The other attackers, before they could react, were knocked to the underworld with a single punch or kick. Nowadays Bai Lang's strikes are all powerful; back when he had only achieved the Tiger Form True Meaning, his killing force was already like that of a huge beast, and now that the fourth level of Golden Bell Shield Divine Skill is complete, his power has risen even higher.

Although still a minor figure in the martial world, he's now a relatively strong one; after opening the Ren and Du meridians and achieving the primordial state through the Heaven‑Earth Gateway, his ranking might even surpass the sect leader Gao Yuan. Bai Lang kept moving, stepping over the threshold into the branch hall. "Didn't expect a stray fish here; his martial skill is decent!" a middle‑aged man among the Great River Gate said, his tone and stance indicating he was likely the commander this time.

"Attack!" the man barked low, and the six Great River Gate masters, together with a group of disciples, charged forward. "Sure enough, it's a gang fighting for turf, not even a one‑on‑one martial duel—just a mob beat‑down." Bai Lang thought, then shouted, "Do you still follow martial‑world rules? Let's duel one‑on‑one!"

That middle‑aged man and the others all laughed, "Not bad, not bad, Jianghu rules. Fine, let's draw a line for a duel—you duel us, we duel you, two options, pick one. Jianghu rules, ha!" Bai Lang was choked, truly meeting shameless brothers on the path; his face was still fresh…… he could only choose to duel the whole group. Bai Lang inhaled, spread his arms, activated Golden Bell Shield Divine Skill, and a golden bell illusion flashed outside his body.

"Bad!" the middle‑aged man shouted, but the eager Great River Gate disciples had already launched knives, swords, and fists. Accompanied by a long bell toll, those attacks all rebounded. Those with knives and swords suffered tiger‑mouth splits; those who struck with fists suffered light sprains or severe bone fractures. If Bai Lang's Golden Bell Shield had reached the sixth or seventh level, the reinforced rebound would have killed a batch. In any case Bai Lang lost not a single hair, while the charging Great River Gate disciples were already badly injured.

At this moment the six masters flashed out from the crowd, each unleashing their techniques on Bai Lang. The disciples were unperturbed—just cross‑training, it seemed they could still manifest true‑meaning illusions, and each of them had reached this level, making six‑to‑one feasible. Among the six, two used fist‑palm, four used swords; indeed swordsmanship is a major pillar of the martial world.

The four swordsmen's style was like flying birds, like poisonous snakes—essentially a blend of the two. The fist‑palm style flowed like the mighty Yangtze River, endless and powerful, truly the top‑tier skill Bai Lang had ever seen in the Chang Le Gang. "Black Tiger Fist can't compare at all!" Bai Lang sighed, his hands forming a void around his chest, Golden Bell Shield power fully unleashed, and the bronze bell of the ferocious tiger‑eating‑man pattern materialised as a translucent shadow, enveloping him.

The four swords struck first, and as expected could not pierce the protective yang‑qi, rebounding instead. The palm strikes, however, resonated with Golden Bell Shield's internal force, allowing them to pierce straight into Bai Lang's body. "Reduced by at least seventy percent!" Bai Lang took those two palm blows, his body shuddered, and his claws tore up and down. A tiger's roar rang out, the bell illusion suddenly changed, becoming a black‑and‑white striped ferocious tiger.

Bai Lang's form elongated, and he lunged at the middle‑aged man using the palm style—the strongest opponent. When Bai Lang unleashed his technique, it carried the killing aura soaked in the battle formation; that aura made Black Tiger Fist appear unprecedentedly grim and savage. Yet the man, likely a corpse‑stack roller, swung his iron palms across a street‑wide force, completely ignoring Bai Lang's killing aura, and met him with a flurry of twin palm strikes.

This palm method followed the Yangtze River style, stacking the power of the rear palm onto the front, layer upon layer forming an endless torrent of palm force. That force blocked Bai Lang's advance, but the guy let out a tiger's roar, and Bai Lang's claws ripped through the vast river—Black Tiger Fist's meaning lies in letting Bai Lang truly grasp a method to ignite internal force and project it several feet outward. "First I'll send you to the heavens!" Bai Lang fought fiercely with the man; the man's palm force was massive, his palms broad and his techniques refined, his combat experience evidently extensive—he almost blocked every strike from Bai Lang.