Chapter 22: Morbid, Blackening

Feng Mu's pupils contracted, his head tilted to dodge, and his right hand swept upward.

Zhang Tong unfolded his fist into a claw, wrapped his arm forward in an embrace, and the five fingers revealing a gloomy black hooked toward Feng Mu's head.

"Such fast movements, such vicious techniques."

Feng Mu's heart skipped a beat; the right hand stabbing toward Zhang Tong's neck immediately changed direction, his wrist crossing horizontally to block beside his ear.

He didn't dare compete on speed; in a life-or-death instant, he didn't have that confidence, he could only step back and defend.

Little did he know, one step back, step by step back; martial artists fighting contend over martial skill, even more over desperation; one misstep losing the first opportunity might be the chasm between life and death.

"Hey!"

Zhang Tong's pupils brightened, blazing with radiance; his five fingers clawed furiously, the fierce fingernails piercing flesh like stabbing tofu, directly gripping the bone inside.

The wrist tendons and muscles were gouged to ruin, the entire palm numbed for an instant, the dagger fell powerlessly.

"Just this much ability?"

Zhang Tong flew into a rage; one claw had probed the newcomer's depth, and it was truly weaker than he expected.

It wasn't exactly weak either; after all, one slash shaved off his scalp, and although it took a sneak attack, the strength wasn't small; it was just that changing moves was stiff, errors frequent, the killing experience laughable.

Zhang Tong's right hand five fingers gripped dead tight, arm muscles bulging, posturing to pull Feng Mu's bones out of the flesh.

"Who gave you the guts to lock the door, afraid you'd have nowhere to escape?"

Zhang Tong grinned savagely, his left hand reverse-gripping the dagger in mid-air; the blade tip like a poison snake spitting its snake tongue, stabbed straight at Feng Mu's heart cavity.

"The essence of martial dao killing appears to be the strong beating the weak, the fast beating the slow, but in reality, it is the vicious beating the vicious; two people locked in a death struggle, the one who survives isn't necessarily the stronger, the faster, but often the one who is more vicious."

"He is vicious, you are more vicious; he is crazy, you are crazier; then you can beat him to death, then you can live!"

The instructor's vicious roar in martial arts class poured anew into Feng Mu's mind at this moment; the meaning not well understood then, now, amidst his own fresh blood, breathing the death qi in the air.

Feng Mu suddenly understood, and then came intense heart palpitations.

His heart seemed seized by an invisible hand, the heart even stopped for half a beat; Feng Mu realized the fatal mistake he had committed.

That step, I shouldn't have dodged; seemingly just one step, in reality one step landed on the cliff edge, wrist seized and captured, only able to stand on the cliff edge and passively take a beating.

"Until beaten to death alive, am I going to be beaten to death?"

Great terror shrouded every cell between life and death; Feng Mu's tongue root stiffened, Adam's apple locked rigid, breathing spasmed and held; black pupils crawled with horrified bloodshot veins.

Ears fell into dead silence; the world was muted in this instant, leaving only the heart's surging throb; surging blood pressure made Feng Mu's eye sockets ferocious, splitting with terrifying bloodshot veins.

On the retina, the icon that had been playing dead and dim flickered with golden light.

【Blood Frenzy】 was responding to the stimulus of blood loss.

【Blood Frenzy】: When I lose blood, I will strengthen in all aspects.

"My wrist is spraying blood aaaaah, I'm so scared, I don't want to die aaaaah!!!"

Feng Mu's eyes veiled with blood color; under the stimulus of blood loss, reason and cowardice both turned into madness; he let out the first vicious roar since entering the room.

Anger, bloodthirst, choosing people to devour.

Chi la!

Like the harsh sound of cloth being forcibly torn apart, the five fingers clamped on Feng Mu's wrist were torn apart in response.

Three fingers still stuck on it, two fell on the ground, flesh and blood blurred, shocking to the eye.

Zhang Tong didn't even feel pain; he looked in shock at the uneven broken fingers; the ragged flesh and nerves at the edges were all pulled into strings.

"It wasn't me clamping his wrist, but he pulled my hand?"

Zhang Tong was shocked by Feng Mu's strength, but the life-or-death moment allowed no hesitation; the broken fingers made his whole body's ferocity explode; he advanced instead of retreating, wringing out all his body's strength to grip the knife and stab.

"Die!"

"Die!"

Two vicious roars overlapped, turning into one strange grinding sound.

The knife pierced taut muscle, entered the ribs, suddenly jammed in the middle, grinding and scraping out a string of friction sparks.

Bone and blade collided hard; the already deformed handle couldn't bear the load and snapped in the middle.

The vicious qi in Zhang Tong's chest, like the knife handle, was snapped; he let go and let the handle fall to the ground, a pair of eyeballs staring dead at the small half-section of blade embedded in the latter's chest.

Swaying unsteadily, it was gently pulled out by Feng Mu, and conveniently stabbed back into Zhang Tong's throat.

Black blood surged from Zhang Tong's mouth; he stared wide-eyed at the metallic luster of ribs reflected on Feng Mu's chest, as if wanting to ask something, but his throat only let out "he he" air-leaking sounds.

Zhang Tong's hand covered his neck; he fell backward onto the ground, lying in a row with Ma Wei's "corpse" prone beside him.

After the death threat was removed, the blood color in Feng Mu's pupils faded somewhat, but the surging heartbeat still clamored in his heart, constantly surging murderous vicious thoughts.

Feng Mu kicked Ma Wei's "corpse"; his hoarse voice chilling: "If you're awake don't pretend, otherwise just sleep forever."

The lingering resonance of 【Blood Frenzy】 stimulated Feng Mu's five senses; he could hear Ma Wei's fearful heartbeat.

Relying on a Second-level Martial Artist's physique, Zhang Tong wouldn't die for a while; he covered his throat, face pale as he glanced to the side.

"Ma Wei isn't dead, just unconscious; this person's sneak attack on Ma Wei didn't use a knife, so he only used a knife on me; he only came to kill me?" Zhang Tong's heart surged with turbulent waves.

Ma Wei trembled as he stood up, meeting Zhang Tong's complex gaze, and said panic-stricken: "Tong Ge, I just woke up."

Finished speaking, Ma Wei hurriedly avoided Zhang Tong's gaze, swallowed saliva, and carefully sized up Feng Mu.

Ma Wei lied; he had been awake for a while, but seeing the two fighting so fiercely, how would he dare go up; anyway his martial dao was low, going up would only help backwards, better to hide on the ground and play dead.

Thought Tong Ge could win, result was a loss; can't blame him, right.

Feng Mu coldly laughed, also didn't expose it; he didn't know how intimate the two's relationship was, but thought that before a life-or-death choice, even the most intimate feelings can be severed.

Feng Mu asked in a cold voice: "He is your Big Brother?"

Ma Wei didn't understand what Feng Mu meant, but the latter only revealed a pair of eyes too terrifying; he didn't dare deceive, so he was sparing with words: "Yes."

The counter-kill of Zhang Tong caused a huge change in Feng Mu's mentality; he was no longer nervous and flustered; the villain aura didn't need deliberate disguise anymore.

Feng Mu said in a deep voice: "Want to die or want to live?"

Ma Wei hurriedly answered: "Live, want to live."

"Good." Feng Mu took out his phone from his pocket with one hand, opened the camera, and ordered, "Kill him, and you live."

"Ah?" Ma Wei was stunned pale.

Zhang Tong shook his head madly, desperately gasping for breath, yet he didn't even have the strength to crawl up, his eyes full of despair.

Feng Mu held up the phone, the lens aimed at Ma Wei, his calm voice like the Grim Reaper urging death: "Hurry up, if he kicks the bucket, you go with him."

Ma Wei understood Feng Mu's meaning, his expression struggling.

Feng Mu frowned slightly, mocking, "How much does he give you a month? You want to die with him? Can't be that in this day and age, being in a gang still talks about loyalty?"

In my past life, even the triads in movies talked money.

In this life, this even more cruel world, do gangs still talk loyalty?

Feng Mu didn't believe it, but he equally understood, the more a place doesn't believe in it, the punishment for betrayal must be even more cruel, because it all relies on cruelty to enforce gang rules.

"Fine, die together then." Feng Mu coldly laughed, the phone lowered just a centimeter.

Ma Wei's face twisted, his knees thudded kneeling before Zhang Tong, tears streaming: "Tong Ge, sorry, don't blame me, I haven't been mighty yet, I don't want to die ah."

Amidst the weeping, Ma Wei pried open Zhang Tong's hand, took hold of the blade, pulled it out, stabbed down, pulled it out again, stabbed down again.

Zhang Tong's eyes gradually lost color, at the last moment his consciousness faded, what he thought of wasn't the days when the two picked up scrap as children, nor anything else, but that woman lying in the hospital the day before yesterday.

Back then, he was the one who stabbed her to death just like this!

"Come, smile at the lens." Feng Mu's heart had not a shred of pity, mercy to beasts is cruelty to people.

In the lens, Ma Wei, face covered in blood and filth, revealed a twisted and manic smile...

(End of Chapter)