Chapter 70: A Beautiful Misunderstanding Is a Villain's Elegance

Human eyes need a few seconds to adapt from light to darkness.

Hei Hei Number One's heart tightened; his eyes had been in darkness for less than half a second when a vicious wind struck from the side, his nose tip ached as if gouged by a scalpel, and wet blood instantly smeared his lips.

Hei Hei Number One retreated violently, his single arm clenching a fist and blasting forward — it seemed to hit a person, yet also seemed to strike an iron wall; the feedback on his fist was cold and hard to the extreme.

Feng Mu, who had been waiting in the darkness for a long time, took Hei Hei Number One's hastily launched punch head-on; his chest ribs ached with shock, and his fiercely charging steps were halted for an instant.

He grinned savagely, without the slightest hesitation, continued stomping the ground and charging fiercely, and simultaneously flicked a fingertip — a chunk of rotten meat slapped onto Hei Hei Number One's face with a wet smack.

"Here, have your nose back." The voice from beneath the mask was indescribably sinister and cold.

Hei Hei Number One's heart skipped a beat; only then did he free a hand to wipe his face — sure enough, a chunk of rotten meat was stuck to his cheek, and his nose was a sunken hollow with only two nostril holes left.

"Who are you? Where's that little dwarf?"

Hei Hei Number One was also a ruthless character; while retreating to buy time for his eyes to recover vision, he opened his mouth, stuffed his own fallen nose inside, chewed, and swallowed it.

Feng Mu watched with a slight chill in his heart; his killing intent surged higher. He coldly laughed: "You guess — who's standing behind you right now?"

Hei Hei Number One panicked; his big toe dug dead into the ground, his cloth shoes utterly unable to withstand the abuse and shredded into strips; he shifted all his weight onto his single standing foot, twisted his waist, and his other foot tore through the air — five toes poking through the shoe, blackened to a purplish hue.

There was nothing in the air; the side kick's arc of toes slammed into the corridor wall, gouging several grooves in the dilapidated masonry, and cement debris fell rustling down.

"No one?" Hei Hei Number One's vision recovered; he was horrified — where was anyone before him? There was only a dim, empty corridor.

"Wrong — right now, behind you is where someone really is."

Hei Hei Number One hurriedly shrank his head and tucked his neck, one foot planted, the other kicking off the wall, lunging forward in a bizarre posture like a lame frog.

"Hey, you fell for it!" A mocking laugh leaked undisguised malice.

Feng Mu took two quick steps beneath his feet; no fancy footwork or body technique — in this cramped, narrow straight passage, those were useless; he relied purely on the most raw speed.

One stomp of his foot, the shoe sole imprint dented the ground by a fraction; Feng Mu was like a venomous snake launched from a spring, his two fingers flashing with a dark luster turning into fangs, biting toward Hei Hei Number One's back spine.

Hei Hei Number One's back went numb; it was truly impossible to dodge — he actually executed a mid-air backflip, his rear heel like a scorpion tail, stabbing viciously backward.

In a startling glimpse, he finally saw that ghostly face clearly — a faceless bone mask fused seamlessly onto a human face, bone and cheek fitting perfectly without a seam.

As a devout believer of the E Corpse Teaching, Hei Hei Number One would not mistake the white bone face for a mere mask like others; his instinctive first judgment was...

Bone growing out of flesh — E Corpse?!

"Could it be someone from the Teaching? But why would they kill me?" Hei Hei Number One was horrified to the extreme; without a moment's hesitation he cried out in alarm.

Feng Mu's pupils shrank; he closed in, neither dodging nor avoiding, his chest ribs meeting the attack head-on.

Crack.

Hei Hei Number One watched in disbelief as the other's chest clothing burst open, a circle of bones blooming atop, encircling into a serrated ring of white bone.

His retracted heel slammed into it, ferociously shattering one bone, but then the force fell short and stopped; his ankle was gashed with bloody cuts, exactly as if bitten by a man-eating flower.

"The E Corpse Transformation research succeeded?"

Hei Hei Number One stared with wide eyes; the enormous shock and bewilderment made him blank out instantly.

Feng Mu seemed to glean something from Hei Hei Number One's shocked words, but he didn't care in the slightest, and would never give the opponent any answers.

Leaving a beautiful misunderstanding for the dead — isn't that precisely a villain's elegance?

Seizing the opponent's distraction, Feng Mu seized; five fingers like iron tongs clamped onto the other's ankle, yet the feel was like gripping tough cowhide.

Hei Hei Number One's soles turned cold; he hurriedly snapped back, his calf muscles swelling, the yanking force suddenly multiplying several times.

Even relying on the bones and brute strength forged by 【Second Stage Iron Eater】, Feng Mu nearly failed to hold on, dragged forward two steps — showing how ferocious the explosive power was.

Feng Mu dropped into a deep squat, rooted like a great tree; his five fingertips suddenly split, cold finger bones hooking ruthlessly through skin and flesh.

That flesh was tight, not tofu-soft but like a knot of rubber; an ordinary 【Crane Claw Technique】 might truly not pierce through.

But under the doubled power of the 【Mutated Crane Claw Technique】, Hei Hei Number One's ankle was ultimately punctured with five blood holes; the Achilles tendon and fascia were shredded by the finger bones.

As for the bone deeper inside, Feng Mu scraped it — the hook felt like grinding on iron plate; its hardness actually rivaled his own bones.

Feng Mu didn't waste that effort; he shook his wrist and unleashed 【Crane Claw Technique Sixth Form — Bone Cleaving】.

Hei Hei Number One, caught off guard with his ankle seized, couldn't pull free; he could only watch helplessly as his entire right leg muscles were cleaved strand by strand, revealing the white, ghastly bone beneath.

Hei Hei Number One suffered the pain, yet didn't utter a single miserable scream — only a fierce light flickered in his eyes; he finally stopped obsessing over who exactly was behind the mask.

Seeing he couldn't retrieve his leg, he simply let Feng Mu grip it; at this moment head down feet up, both hands clawed at the ground, waist curled, springing upright like a sit-up — his chest nearly collided full-on with Feng Mu's blooming ring of ribs.

Hei Hei Number One actually used the seized single foot as a pivot, directly sitting into Feng Mu's embrace, both arms simultaneously encircling, both fists like awls, driving toward the other's temples on both sides.

A truly suicidal fighting style — the slightest mishap and Hei Hei Number One would be committing suicide; even Feng Mu watched with heart-pounding alarm, praising inwardly: "More ferocious than every enemy I've ever faced before — not even in the same league."

Simply lightning-fast, both ferocious and vicious.

By the time Feng Mu reacted, his brain couldn't even issue movement commands in time.

Through the mask, Feng Mu could hear the muffled sound of air being compressed; even through the mask, he seemed to feel a dull ache radiating from his temples.

Hei Hei Number One aimed to smash his brains out in one strike, and simultaneously shatter the mask — he had to see whether the face beneath was human or E Corpse.

"Most importantly, he changes moves mid-battle extremely fast, extremely viciously."

Feng Mu sighed inwardly; he had already relied on terrain advantage + sneak attack + deception, seizing the initiative — yet he still had the feeling of being forced into a dead end.

"【Crane Claw Technique】 is still too monotonous; my technical shortcomings are very obvious — fortunately I just gained 20,000 Skill Proficiency points; when I get back I must find a way to make them up as fast as possible."

Feng Mu's gaze was equally fierce; he also didn't seem prepared to change moves — head utterly motionless, he merely spat two words from between his teeth that Hei Hei Number One couldn't comprehend.

"Add Points!"

Hei Hei Number One: "???"

He completely didn't understand what the bizarre "E Corpse" before him was saying at death's door — some secret signal, or another attempt to deceive him?

But, he, Hei Hei Number One, was no fool; linguistic deception he wouldn't fall for twice — before his eyes he seemed to already see the other's skull explode, red and white splattering in a beautiful tableau...

(End of Chapter)