Essence Devouring Art

Amidst towering mountains, a long bridge spanned a river.

At the Bridge Entrance.

A man-made roadblock had been set up.

A dozen or so burly, broad-waisted men, reeking of banditry and armed with blades and axes, had stopped a merchant caravan trying to cross the bridge.

In the air.

A thick stench of blood also lingered.

Several bodies, hacked to pieces, lay on the ground—they were the caravan’s guards who had resisted.

Without their guards.

The rest of the people were forced into a huddle by the bandits, squatting on the ground and trembling in fear.

But there was one exception.

Wu Dao, his nine-foot-tall, imposing frame cloaked in black, stood tall behind the squatting crowd. His physique, like that of a great bear from the forest, was exceptionally conspicuous.

He wore a bamboo hat that concealed his unusual black-and-gold eyes. Through the black veil, he glanced at the dozen or so robbers at the Bridge Entrance and was slightly surprised.

’This batch of scum is pretty strong.’

A dozen or so robbers.

Their leader was a fierce man with thick limbs, a powerful build, and the brawny frame of a tiger.

One eye was covered with a black patch, and he carried a huge Wolf Fang Club, giving him the air of a chieftain from Black Wind Stronghold.

He certainly had the strength to match this air.

After all.

He was at the Divine Power Realm!

The rest of the bandits were mostly at the Hard and Soft Realm, with a few at the Inner Strength realm. All of them were skilled fighters capable of taking on a hundred ordinary men.

’Now this is interesting.’

Wu Dao gazed toward the end of the long bridge. Through the shrouding clouds and mist, he could vaguely make out a magnificent city standing proudly on the plains.

Lancang City!

The headquarters of the White Whale Martial Arts Hall!

It was only a few dozen miles away, yet a formidable group of mountain bandits was still running rampant here. This was highly unusual.

This was because once you entered Canglan City, as long as you paid a certain protection fee to the White Whale Martial Arts Hall, your life and property would be safe.

For these mountain bandits to so brazenly set up a roadblock and rob merchants was tantamount to stealing food from the White Whale Martial Arts Hall’s plate.

Where did they get the nerve?

Or perhaps...

Someone had lent it to them.

A guess formed in Wu Dao’s mind, but he didn’t dwell on it. For him, the outcome would be the same regardless.

"Hey, I’m talking to you! Are you deaf? Take off that damn hat! You’re a big fella, don’t you have any sense?"

An arrogant, brazen shout snapped Wu Dao back to his senses.

Wu Dao glanced over.

A dark-faced man at the Hard and Soft Realm was cursing and yelling at him, his mouth full of yellow teeth. It was quite disgusting.

It was no wonder he was so arrogant.

Over the past few days, to make it easier to gather information about this World and to avoid drawing too much attention, he had kept his qi, blood, and flesh suppressed. He had also withdrawn his immense Divine Power completely into his body and wore a bamboo hat to hide his face.

It wasn’t that he enjoyed playing weak to crush the strong.

It was just that with his current strength, if he didn’t conceal it at all, he would cause a commotion wherever he went, with people staring at him like a monkey in a zoo. The constant annoyance was more than he could bear.

Not to mention.

The Yellow Dragon Temple, the power behind Mao Ba, might still be looking for information on him. It wasn’t a good time to become ’famous’.

It wouldn’t matter once he joined the White Whale Martial Arts Hall.

In the past few days, Wu Dao had also figured out the true scale of a power like the Yellow Dragon Temple. Although they were a somewhat transcendent sect of the Immortal Dao from ’On the Mountain’...

...they couldn’t exactly run rampant in Guangqing Prefecture. The White Whale Martial Arts Hall wasn’t afraid of them in the slightest.

The people from Yellow Dragon Temple would never brazenly target a Pojian Master from the White Whale Martial Arts Hall over a vague suspicion.

For all these reasons.

To outsiders, Wu Dao currently just seemed like a ’big oaf’ with a somewhat unusual physique.

This led to a situation where...

...whenever Wu Dao traveled on the back roads, nine times out of ten he would run into some bandits who wanted to do some "no-capital business" with him.

In the end.

It always ended with Wu Dao doing "no-capital business" with them instead.

After a few days of this.

His bag was nearly stuffed full of silver banknotes. The total value was estimated at no less than ten thousand taels of silver, enough to buy a huge pile of high-quality medicinal herbs.

And wouldn’t you know it.

Someone else was here to give him more money.

’It’s a bit noisy and annoying, but who can refuse free money?’

"Goddammit, playing deaf, are we? You’d better be for real, or I’ll cut off your ears and pickle ’em with my wine!"

Seeing Wu Dao stand there without a word, the dark-faced man felt he had lost face in front of his boss. He rolled up his sleeves, closed the distance in a few quick strides, and threw a punch that tore through the air, landing squarely on Wu Dao’s chest.

A Martial Artist at the Hard and Soft Realm.

After nourishing their bodies, they temper their flesh through various Martial Arts techniques, developing a brute strength of no less than a thousand jin!

Furthermore, the Power of the Hard and Soft Realm has been fully "awakened," and they know how to use technique to unleash their greatest killing potential.

A punch thrown in anger...

...could knock out a tiger.

Clearly.

This dark-faced man was aiming to kill Wu Dao. It seemed that killing someone was as normal to him as eating or drinking.

But.

This time, he had kicked a steel plate.

A literal steel plate.

THUD!

CRACK!

The dark-faced man’s furious punch slammed into Wu Dao’s chest, and it felt like hitting an indestructible steel plate. The rebound force shattered the bones in his hand on the spot, sending excruciating pain through him.

"Ah, my—"

The dark-faced man was about to roar in pain and pull his hand back.

But before he could cry out or retract his right hand.

Wu Dao’s pectoral muscle merely twitched.

CRACK—

BANG!

A massive force surged back into the dark-faced man’s arm. His bones and muscles instantly shattered inch by inch, finally exploding into a mist of blood. Red and white fragments of flesh and bone splattered across the faces of several nearby bandits.

"AH! MY HAND! MY HAND!!"

His inhuman screams drowned out the sound of the roaring river beneath the bridge.

The dark-faced man clutched his gushing right shoulder, rolling on the ground like a pig being slaughtered. After a few screams, he passed out from the pain.

CRUNCH!

Wu Dao took a step forward, seemingly casual, but his large foot directly crushed the dark-faced man’s chest, grinding his internal organs into a paste.

"AH!!"

At such a bloody and brutal scene.

Some of the more timid women in the caravan shrieked, their eyes rolling back in their heads as they fainted, their crotches soaked with urine.

Neigh... whinny...

The dozen or so horses of the caravan also seemed to sense the ferocious aura of a wild beast. They let out panicked whinnies, their legs gave out, and they all collapsed to their knees, unable to get up.

WHOOSH~

Just then.

A gust of mountain wind blew past.

It lifted the veil of Wu Dao’s bamboo hat, revealing his inhuman black-and-gold eyes and a grin filled with two rows of triangular, black steel shark-like teeth.

"Oh no, it’s Skull-Breaking Hand Black Pupil! This one’s a tough nut to crack! Brothers, retreat!"

When the bandit leader at the Bridge Entrance—the one with the black eye patch and the Wolf Fang Club—saw Wu Dao’s terrifying black pupils, his one remaining eye nearly bulged out of its socket. He let out a strange cry and turned to flee.

’Skull-Breaking Hand Black Pupil...’

’What the hell is that?’

Wu Dao was taken aback for a moment. ’When did I get a nickname like that?’ But now wasn’t the time to think about it.

BAM!

Dragon Elephant Trample! The ground trembled!

Seeing the bandits trying to scatter and flee.

Wu Dao stomped a foot down hard. The entire black-stone-paved ground at the Bridge Entrance rippled like a wave, and the scattered bone fragments of the dark-faced man were instantly flung into the air.

WHOOSH~

Wu Dao’s large hand tore through the air, sweeping the airborne bone shards into his grasp. His Micro Level Spiritual Perception instantly locked onto the bandits in every direction.

SHOO SHOO SHOO—

POP POP POP!

Each piece of bone, empowered by Heroic Level Power, shot out like a high-speed cannonball, breaking the sound barrier and tearing through the air with a series of sonic booms.

In just the blink of an eye.

The dozen or so bandits hadn’t even fled twenty meters before their heads began to explode one after another like watermelons, bursting into clouds of blood mist. Red and white matter flew and splattered everywhere.

The headless bodies.

...continued to run on pure nerve impulse, staggering a good distance before finally collapsing to the ground.