C8 It Was Really Satisfying to Beat People!
Servant disciples were essentially the sect's servants. Each one had a plethora of daily chores to attend to.
Take Ink Bamboo Peak, where Yang Fann resided, for instance. The six hundred servant disciples there were tasked with chopping down Ink Bamboos as thick as an adult's fist, a seemingly modest total of fifty.
Yet, for those mostly at the lower Pulse Opening Stage, this was no small feat. The Ink Bamboo, despite its name, was deceptively tough to fell—three times harder than wrought iron, making it a formidable challenge for the average servant disciple to even manage seven or eight in an hour.
Even Lei Bao, the top dog of Ink Bamboo Peak, would need a good two to four hours to chop fifty. And given his domineering nature, whether he'd actually stoop to perform such menial tasks was another matter entirely.
Twenty days prior, Yang Fann often had to toil until nightfall to finish his duties, sometimes even pulling all-nighters. But the Yang Fann of today was a changed man. With his rank 8 bloodline and the Fourth Layer Huge Perfection cultivation, he could effortlessly wield Cauldron Strength with a single strike, felling an Ink Bamboo with just a few swift cuts.
In under an hour, he had already completed the lion's share of his fifty bamboo quota, with nearly half that time spent tidying up the trimmed branches.
"Bam!"
Another bamboo succumbed to Yang Fann's blade, branches tumbling to the ground.
Just then,
a teasing voice echoed from behind, "Junior Brother Yang, you've really made Senior Brother work to find you!"
"Luo Cheng?" As Yang Fann spun around and recognized his visitor, a flicker of animosity crossed his gaze. "I was just about to come looking for you, but here you are, delivering yourself to my doorstep. Perfect, I'll start by taking a little interest!"
He was determined to confront Lei Bao and his cronies like Luo Cheng, who had tormented him for months. Though Lei Bao was the ringleader, it was Luo Cheng who had often been the one to harass him.
"Huh, he's chopped down so many!" Luo Cheng barely glanced at Yang Fann, his eyes fixated on the neatly piled Ink Bamboo. A look of astonishment briefly crossed his elongated face.
"Did this good-for-nothing start his labor in the dead of night?" Luo Cheng mused, unable to conjure any other explanation. The idea that Yang Fann could have accomplished this in an hour never even crossed his mind—not when even his boss, Lei Bao, struggled to chop thirty in the same timeframe, much less someone deemed as worthless as Yang Fann.
The next moment,
Luo Cheng's hands rubbed together, his lips curling into a sly grin, "Now, all this falls into my lap!" With these thirty-plus bamboos, he could skim a few off the new recruits and call his chores done for the day.
In a swift motion, Luo Cheng bent down to claim the Ink Bamboo, utterly indifferent to Yang Fann's perspective.
However, at that instant,
a playful voice floated from nearby, "Luo Cheng, do you really think it's wise to so blatantly steal my hard work right before the eyes of its rightful owner?"
"Oh? Yang Fann, you think you can object?" Luo Cheng sneered, not bothering to look up.
"Luo Cheng, ever heard the saying 'Thirty years on the east bank of the river, thirty years on the west'? It's high time we settled our accounts!"
Upon hearing those words, Luo Cheng was momentarily taken aback, then burst into laughter as if he'd heard the punchline of a ridiculous joke. "Hahaha, I can't stop laughing! You think you can talk about fortunes reversing over thirty years? You must be out of your mind. You want to settle the score with me? Fine! I'll loosen your bones today and teach you a lesson. Don't think for a second that just because you're on the verge of being kicked out of the sect, I'll hesitate to thrash you!"
Luo Cheng, energized and eager, clenched his fists and charged at Yang Fann with determined strides. He was convinced that without a good beating, Yang Fann might actually believe he could turn the tables after a few days without punishment.
"Luo Cheng, you're the one who's not awake!" Yang Fann suddenly bellowed, his voice thunderous, resonating through his body and echoing across the land. His strength surged within him, ready to be unleashed.
In an instant, Yang Fann made his move. His body sliced through the air, reaching Luo Cheng in a flash. He twisted and launched a punch as swift as lightning, seizing the initiative.
Yang Fann's punch was devoid of any martial skill, a straightforward strike. Yet, combined with his Fifth Layer Pulse Opening Stage cultivation and the might of his Eighth Grade Bloodline, it was staggeringly powerful. With a single blow, he summoned the force of two hundred cauldrons, enough to shatter rocks and cleave mountains.
"How dare you!" Luo Cheng's vision blurred as Yang Fann, whom he had so casually dismissed, was already upon him, delivering a punch. With no time to evade, Luo Cheng bellowed and countered with all his inner force, determined to clash with Yang Fann's attack.
"Bam!" Their fists met with a thunderous crash, reminiscent of a meteorite striking the earth.
The next moment was marked by the sound of snapping bones, like a string of firecrackers going off.
"Ah!" Luo Cheng let out a scream akin to a pig being slaughtered as he was sent reeling backward. The overwhelming force of more than two hundred cauldrons was too much even for many Fifth Empyrean martial artists, let alone a Third Empyrean like Luo Cheng. Yang Fann's punch had brutally shattered his right hand, and the horrific power continued to ravage upwards, blood pouring from his wounds.
Yang Fann pressed his advantage, following up with another devastating punch that elicited a soul-tearing scream as it struck Luo Cheng's abdomen. But Yang Fann wasn't done; he unleashed a sweeping leg kick that sent Luo Cheng flying without a sound, his body crashing to the ground and forming a human-shaped crater. Blood sprayed wildly, teeth shattered across the floor, and the number of broken bones in his body was anyone's guess.
Yang Fann advanced again, swift as lightning, and stomped down on Luo Cheng's right calf, grinding it to rubble with his ferocious strength.
"Ah!" The excruciating pain jolted Luo Cheng awake to face a barrage of punches, each the size of a sandbag, pummeling his face. Thankfully, Yang Fann retained a shred of reason, aware that while the Seven Stars Sect turned a blind eye to sparring and injuries among servant disciples, taking a life was a serious offense. With that in mind, he pulled his punches ever so slightly.
"That's for being a thug!"
"That's for picking on the newcomer!"
"That's for swiping my Refreshing Soup!"
"That's for taking my Ink Bamboo!"
"Bang!"
"Hahaha, so this is what it feels like to throw a punch. Exhilarating!"
"Bang!"
In the midst of his unrestrained laughter, a sound like thunderous waves crashing echoed from within Yang Fann's body. Sand and stones scattered in all directions as his aura surged wildly! It was as though a primordial beast had fully awakened inside him!