Chen Feng's face was a mask of coldness. In his right hand, he held four bright red hearts! With a sudden thud, an azure flame ignited in his palm, instantly incinerating the hearts into ash!
Ura Nagi!
Ura Nagi (→ or ← + C) is a powerful close-range offensive technique used by Iori Yagami, utilizing steel claws for a fierce assault. Typically, he extends his sharp claws directly into the opponent's body, causing an internal explosion of pale flames! This move is incredibly fast at close range, making it impossible to guard against! It is often used in conjunction with Yami Barai for excellent results.
As the four men attacked simultaneously, Chen Feng, with blinding speed, instantly pierced their chests with claws imbued with swirling cyclone energy! This method of attack was precisely the Ura Nagi!
The brutality of the attack stunned the remaining mercenaries, who had expected to easily dispatch the young man. Instead, he had instantly killed their comrades! Furthermore, none of them had even perceived how he executed the move!
"All at once! This guy is strange!" the leader shouted, rallying them.
The leader had snapped out of his initial shock. The speed at which the red-haired youth had erupted just now had sent a shiver of dread down his spine, even though he was a Level Six Knight. He secretly calculated that if he were hit by such a claw attack, his only path would be death! Thus, he called out directly.
Mercenary bands always relied on superior numbers; they held no conviction for one-on-one combat. Seeing the rush, they felt a sense of security in their collective assault!
"Hoo!" An azure flame rose from Chen Feng's hand, and with a hooked motion, the flame raced along the ground toward the foremost charging mercenary!
The pale blue flame hissed as it scraped the ground, resembling a demon ghost emerging from hell. Wherever it passed, the white snow vanished instantly, leaving behind a trench half a meter deep!
Hyakuhachi Shiki: Yami Barai!
The mercenary at the front possessed the strength of a Level Three Fighter. Although he didn't recognize the pale flames (Aoi Honoo), the sheer pressure they exerted terrified him! An immediate thought surfaced: escape! Without hesitation, he surged his inner battle aura (Douki), leaning his body sharply to the side. Perhaps it was the potential unleashed in a moment of life-or-death crisis, or perhaps the danger sparked an unexpected surge of power—he instantly shifted four or five meters laterally!
Logically, a Level Three Fighter could only shift laterally while advancing by generating an air burst on one side of the body, using the pressure of the Douki for instantaneous redirection. However, achieving even half a meter of lateral shift for a Level Three Fighter who struggled to project Douki externally was an excellent achievement; shifting four or five meters was utterly remarkable!
I dodged it this time! the Fighter thought, but looking ahead, his thought was instantly replaced by horror!
"Agh..."
Boom!
He was immediately ignited by the pale flame, enveloped completely in roaring fire, turning into a massive fireball. Accompanied by a piercing shriek, his sound slowly faded. In less than a second, he was reduced to ash!
Everyone's faces turned ashen, and they stopped dead in their tracks! Such terrifying flames! From the moment the flames emerged from the red-haired youth's hand until the mercenary burned to ash, it took less than three seconds! If Chen Feng digging out the hearts of the first four had incited their anger, this display had definitely filled them with terror and helplessness!
"Hmph!" A cold smile touched Chen Feng's lips. The pale flame emitted by Yami Barai could change direction—a maneuver he had already practiced against Kyo Kusanagi. Controlling one redirection now was simpler than controlling forty simultaneously! "Hoo!" Another mass of azure flame appeared in his hand!
"Ah!" The group, now filled with dread of these flames, collectively recoiled a step!
"Kill him, 5000 gold coins reward!" the leader bellowed!
5000 gold coins?
What could 5000 gold coins buy? A luxurious mansion, a fine carriage, beautiful women—all of it! If they obtained this money, why bother being mercenaries at all? Who would choose this precarious, day-to-day existence if not driven by harsh necessity? The entire purpose was to earn money!
The battle cores and magic cores on this red-haired youth alone were worth no less than thirty or forty. If they sold the spoils, even after deducting what the twenty-plus-man mercenary group required, each person might only get 500 gold coins. Now, the leader was offering such a high bounty! Their hearts burned with avarice. To hell with it! They lived on the edge of a blade, having long since dismissed the value of their lives. With a surge of ferocity, their terror vanished. He was just one person; how many could he kill against their combined strength of over a dozen?
With this thought, they all shrieked and charged forward together!
Chen Feng’s gaze grew colder, seemingly dismissing the roaring crowd with disdain. He merely tilted his head slightly toward the leader.
The leader felt a bone-deep chill. What kind of look was that? It was coldness laced with a hint of contempt, as if... he were already considered a dead man!
"Hahaha..." Chen Feng's maniacal laughter echoed again, and his feet began to move with uncanny precision!
The crowd only registered a blur before Chen Feng vanished from sight!
"Such speed!" Only the leader among the mercenaries understood the situation: the opponent had utilized a Douki burst to unleash incredible velocity, instantly slipping out of their encirclement!
"Not good!"
Immediately after, the leader roared, spewing Douki from both arms while simultaneously leaping backward. This leap exerted the utmost capability of a Level Six Fighter, but due to the sheer speed, Boom! His back slammed heavily against the trunk of a tree!
Crack! The massive trunk, requiring two men to embrace, snapped in the middle from the violent impact!
"Did you think you could escape?" Chen Feng's icy voice sounded right beside the leader's ear. The leader's eyes flushed red; he tried to roar to bolster his courage, but then he felt all the strength draining from his body. He looked down to see the red-haired youth standing before him, his right hand inserted straight into his chest, seemingly out of nowhere!
"You... are... a... monster..." The leader's eyes were wide open in death before his life force completely extinguished.
Chen Feng snorted, taking a light step back. The blood at the leader's chest erupted outward, dyeing the pure white snow a vibrant crimson!
When the others had formed the ring, Chen Feng hadn't wasted time engaging them fully. He executed his footwork, directly piercing through the encirclement toward the leader. Seize the leader first—an immutable law of warfare!
The leader had decent awareness and retreated immediately when things turned sour, but how could the speed of a Level Six Fighter compare to Chen Feng, who mastered the techniques of the King of Fighters? He hadn't retreated far before Chen Feng, closely pursuing, instantly terminated him!
"Hoo!" Chen Feng let out a breath. "Those who seek what they should not have will meet only one end: death!"
The azure flame ignited on his hand, and with a casual toss, the leader's body, leaning against the tree trunk, Roared into a column of fire!
Having killed the leader, Chen Feng wasted no time, turning to face the remaining crowd...
With Level Five Dark Cyclone energy, slaughtering a group of Fighters mostly below Level Three was no different than a wolf entering a flock of sheep!
Crimson blood flowed incessantly, staining the pristine snow a brilliant scarlet!
Chen Feng's lean figure moved phantom-like through the throng, appearing utterly arrogant and cold!