Chapter 72: Six Harmonies Fist Master: Burning the Zither and Boiling the Crane

(PS: This chapter killed me—I couldn’t be satisfied no matter how I wrote it. Let it be like this; I’ll revisit later to revise.)

Along the riverbank of Ancheng, flames blazed everywhere.

Every building inhabited by humans had been attacked by fire-feathered squads.

They climbed or rode fire-winged birds.

Bypassing the main entrance, they stormed inside and slaughtered indiscriminately.

The building was packed with too many humans, creating utter chaos.

Panic, fear, crowding, trampling—before the fire-feathered even entered.

Most had already descended into a mad frenzy.

At the first-floor staircase entrance of one building, cracks and scorch marks from heavy blows covered every surface.

A towering, muscular man, nineteen-tenths of a meter tall, held a long spear forged of refined iron, guarding this spot.

Every fire-feathered who charged at him was effortlessly skewered like a string of gourds.

With a single shake of his arm, the corpses shattered and flew apart.

“A month for the staff, a year for the blade, a lifetime for the spear”—this man was Luo Song.

He was an heir of the Six Harmonies Fist, wielding the ancestral Luo Family Six Harmonies Spear.

He had trained with the spear since childhood, for over twenty years.

In this battle, he perfectly demonstrated the principle: “One inch longer, one inch stronger.”

No matter how the fire-feathered charged, he dispatched them in mere moments.

Yet no matter how many he killed, the rest pressed forward, fearless and relentless.

Bang!

Another clash of spear and blade—Luo Song staggered, as if on the verge of collapse.

He cried out anxiously: “Hurry up and buff me! I can’t hold on!”

The fire-feathered facing him brightened his eyes.

He immediately accelerated his assault.

But Luo Song suddenly surged forward, swept the fire-feathered’s great blade aside with his spear tip, then thrust again—killing it.

“Idiot, I tricked you,” Luo Song spat on the fire-feathered’s corpse.

During the fight, Luo Song had discovered with surprise that the fire-feathered understood Chinese.

No—“buff” was an English word.

They must have been granted some language comprehension ability.

He immediately conceived this ruse.

Fortunately, the fire-feathered arriving via light orbs, though appearing simultaneously, had landed in sequence.

This gave Luo Song time to coordinate with his team.

Thus, this plan succeeded.

“I wonder how things are going upstairs,” Luo Song thought.

He felt anxious, desperate to know the battle’s status.

For Luo Song held another role: commander of this building’s defense.

After the second assault began, Luo Song sensed the chaos within the building.

He instantly realized: if things continued this way, casualties would be catastrophic.

Humans had too many points to defend; splitting forces would leave them insufficient.

They’d be picked off one by one, annihilated entirely.

So he overruled all objections and divided combat personnel into several main units.

Each unit advanced in one direction, sweeping from bottom to top, then sweeping again from bottom to top.

Each was assigned a sector to clear of alien lifeforms.

He himself led a mage squad to guard the most dangerous first floor.

This wasn’t arrogance—he had his reasons.

First, the mage squad’s effectiveness was immense.

Though called “mage squad,” it included priests, druids, and other spellcasting classes.

They didn’t rely on spell damage as primary output; instead, they enhanced melee fighters as elite supports.

Second, his own class was no ordinary one—he was a rare base class: Fist Master.

Perhaps due to his lifelong cultivation of Six Harmonies Fist.

After the apocalypse, this class appeared among his class selection options.

As a result, at level five, he gained a powerful feat.

“[Extreme Endurance]: At level five, Fist Master is immune to fatigue;

at level ten, immune to exhaustion; at level fifteen, immune to fear; at level twenty, immune to instant death and energy drain.”

Combined with his lifelong martial training granting him body like forged steel.

“[Body Like Forged Steel I]: Harsh environments or prolonged exertion rarely cause fatigue; gain +4 bonus to Constitution checks. When HP drops to 1–9, your condition remains stable. (Endurance cap +25%)”

Luo Song’s endurance was astonishing, perfect for prolonged combat.

Especially when his HP was low, he retained formidable fighting power.

Paired with priests’ and druids’ healing, he was practically an unkillable cockroach.

Even if others had identical stats, without these feats, they’d have collapsed or died long ago.

This was why he was confident holding the first floor alone.

The facts proved it: Luo Song’s personal strength, combined with a stack of buffs,

left the fire-feathered powerless against him.

The other teams lacked individuals as powerful as him.

But their numbers were vast; once they linked up with the squads holding each floor,

their combined strength far exceeded his alone.

If they executed their orders successfully, building losses would be minimized.

“I hope they complete it…”

Bang!

Arrow met spear—Luo Song barely dodged the strike.

Had it not been for his Intuition Dodge I and Lightness Spell agility bonuses,

he’d have been dead from that arrow.

The archer was a newly appeared fire-feathered archer, wielding a longbow of four hundred pounds draw weight.

Each arrow he fired traveled over one hundred sixty meters per second.

Such speed was beyond human reaction.

Luo Song’s eyes hardened—he realized this new monster was his greatest threat.

If he didn’t eliminate the fire-feathered archer quickly,

once reinforcements arrived, he was finished.

Luo Song shouted: “Flash!”

A flash of magical light instantly enveloped Luo Song.

It was “Foot Oil,” a spell that boosted movement speed.

This was his secret signal with the mages—a trick to deceive enemies.

The fire-feathered archer, hearing Luo Song’s shout, instinctively shut his eyes.

But Luo Song closed the distance instantly, sweeping his spear horizontally.

What was the Six Harmonies Spear? Eye and heart in harmony, qi and strength in harmony, step and technique in harmony.

Now Luo Song embodied the Six Harmonies perfectly.

One sweeping strike—fast, brutal.

The fire-feathered archer couldn’t dodge—he died with his skull crushed.

Luo Song smiled faintly, about to turn back.

Then he glanced toward the entrance.

That glance erased his smile instantly.

In the distance, three fire-feathered archers were rushing toward him.

Worse, behind them came three fire-feathered melee fighters wielding curved great blades.

A ferocious expression darkened Luo Song’s face.

“If heaven wants me dead, I’ll kill you first.”

“I don’t believe it—I’ll reach you, and you’ll still be shooting your damn arrows.”

But then a strange expression crossed Luo Song’s face.

From his observation, these fire-feathered didn’t seem to be attacking the building.

It looked… as if they were fleeing?

Their expressions of terror were unmistakable.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Luo Song vaguely touched his face—was it windy?

Yet this breeze was barely a whisper, yet his cheeks stung inexplicably.

Just as Luo Song was about to ponder what was happening, he saw a sight that froze him in horror.

The six Firefeatherers sprinting ahead had their skin, muscles, organs, and bones sloughing off one by one, blood splattering everywhere, cascading in a wet rush onto the ground.

Like the legendary thousand cuts and ten thousand slices, but faster, deeper, and more cruel.

This was burning the zither and boiling the crane—destroying beauty itself.

At the same time, a young man wielding a long sword appeared before the building’s entrance.