The stark black suit, crisp white dress shirt, and deep crimson trousers made Chen Feng conspicuously out of place amidst his surroundings, accentuated by his air of aloof disdain.

“Iori Yagami…” Judy gasped, a mixture of surprise and recognition in her voice.

The bandits, seeing the strange, red-haired youth appear and incapacitate their leader with a single move, were struck dumb with terror. Yet, having chosen a life of robbery, they had long ago placed death on the table. If they failed to kill the robber, they would surely be killed by him.

“This guy is weird. All of us, now!” The bearded leader gritted his teeth against the pain, refusing to pass out, and bellowed the command.

The gang hesitated for a beat, then let out frantic shouts and charged toward Chen Feng.

Chen Feng paid no mind to the surging crowd behind him. With his back to them, he covered his forehead with his right hand and suddenly burst into uproarious laughter: “Ha! Ha! Ha…”

The brazen laughter echoed, vibrating in the air. The pure white full moon hanging above seemed to tremble slightly, as if Chen Feng held the charging men in utter contempt.

These bandits were survivors, having clawed their way out of piles of corpses; the blood on their hands was countless. Though their cultivation levels were low, the killing intent radiating from them was overwhelmingly dense. A mere Seventh-Rank Fighter encountering such a Sixth-Rank brigand would, by all rights, face certain death.

Judy knew the ferocity of these thugs. Seeing Chen Feng still standing with his back turned, anxiety flared across her face, and she couldn't help but cry out, “Be careful…!”

Chen Feng seemed not to have heard her at all. The laughter ceased, and he tilted his head up toward the moon. In an instant, his silhouette vanished before the charging fourteen bandits. One moment the target was there, the next gone, leaving them scrambling in confusion.

“Watch out, this kid is strange!” one bandit shouted, anxiously scanning the surroundings.

“Hmph!” Chen Feng’s voice materialized directly behind a Seventh-Rank Fighter thug.

The bandit urgently twisted his neck backward. The speed was so rapid that his neck throbbed sharply.

A chilling, cold smile spread across Chen Feng’s face. His steel claws sank sharply into the man’s back, right between the shoulder blades. With a sickening hiss, he brutally tore the man into two distinct sections!

Gyakubachi! (Reverse Stripping!)

“Whoosh!” A plume of white vapor escaped Chen Feng’s mouth. His feet, fueled by explosive bursts of Dou Qi, immediately propelled him airborne. He slammed one fist into a bandit, knocking him sprawling to the ground. Chen Feng immediately crouched over the fallen man, his hands beginning to tear relentlessly at the man’s chest!

“Sssshhh!”

Organs popped out one by one from beneath his steel claws, splashing onto the nearby snow, dyeing it a vivid crimson.

As he dismembered the man, Chen Feng glanced back at the remaining dozen or so bandits, his eyes blazing with a predatory, bloodthirsty light.

This technique was not Iori Yagami’s ultimate move, Kagura Sen Nii Hyaku Shiki: Yagami (Forbidden Art 1211: Eight Maidens), but rather Chen Feng acting on a sudden impulse, deliberately mimicking the move from the game. While the appearance was somewhat similar, the method Chen Feng employed was derived entirely from his Gyakubachi, bearing no trace of the true Eight Maidens.

After bidding farewell to the Pterodactyl swarm, Chen Feng had been deeply contemplating the direction of his cultivation. In real combat, relying rigidly on the game’s precise moves would suffice against lower-level opponents, but how would he fare against powerful foes wielding unique Dou Jue (Combat Techniques)?

It was for this reason that he had casually altered the execution of Gyakubachi, utilizing the attack pattern of the Eight Maidens. The results, surprisingly, were quite satisfactory.

However, the power of this technique was leagues apart from the true Eight Maidens. If it had to be named, it was the Fake Yagami.

The true Eight Maidens, like all perfected techniques, were executed as a single, seamless flow. The circulation of the internal Qi vortex followed a specific, rigid trajectory, with precise requirements for the power and speed of every strike—something far beyond Chen Feng’s current application.

The Fake Yagami could achieve instant death against opponents of lower cultivation, achieving a shocking effect, but attempting to fight above his own level with it would be exceedingly difficult!

One must remember that Forbidden Art 1211: Eight Maidens was comparable to Kyo’s Orochi Nagi. If one cannot use it to challenge stronger opponents, wouldn't it be as useless as chicken ribs?

Although the Fake Yagami Chen Feng was currently using was akin to chicken ribs, it had illuminated a path forward for him! If the Fake Yagami could be practiced incessantly, through repetition, would he eventually awaken the true Eight Maidens?

The thought struck Chen Feng, and a wave of wild ecstasy surged through his heart. Why hadn't he considered this before? Up until now, he had passively accepted the sudden influx of KOF memories; he had never proactively tried to mimic the moves. Now, understanding this opened up a vast road ahead, leaving him refreshed and invigorated!

Chen Feng was experiencing an epiphany mid-battle, but the bandit felled by his Fake Yagami suffered far worse. His internal organs were dragged out one by one by Chen Feng's frantic claws. Even after the man was undeniably dead, Chen Feng showed no sign of stopping, his hands continuing to rake violently through the now-empty cavity of the man’s chest!

Bones, shredded flesh… one piece after another was flung outward…

The remaining bandits broke out in cold sweats watching this spectacle! A single word echoed simultaneously in all their minds: “Cruel!”

Was this truly a youth? Why would a young man be so savage? Or, perhaps, was this even human? How could a person be this ruthless?

Witnessing this scene, if any of them dared to claim their own gang’s methods were cruel, these bandits would surely weep. Their acts of violence, compared to the red-haired youth, were amateurish—barely kindergarten level!

Utterly horrified, the remaining brigands stopped dead, none daring to step forward.

Chen Feng snapped back to awareness. Seeing the unrecognizable mess he had made of the man he was currently tearing apart, he felt a brief shudder of revulsion. He then stood up and surveyed the remaining thugs.

“Ah…!” As the bandits saw him rise and look their way, they cried out in unison and instinctively stepped back. They did not fear death, but the sheer brutality Chen Feng had just displayed had etched an indelible impression in their minds, stirring a deep, intrinsic panic.

Chen Feng stood alone before the eleven remaining bandits, walking toward them step by deliberate step. They retreated as he advanced; one man pushing back more than a dozen brigands—a truly remarkable feat.

“Actually, I detest violence!” As he watched their fearful reactions, Chen Feng’s icy words slowly drifted out.

Detest violence? The bandits felt like crying. Ripping a living man to shreds and continuing to tear at the remains—and he called that detesting violence? Then what, in his eyes, constituted true violence?

Chen Feng observed their expressions and shook his head. “Why is it that when I speak the truth, people never believe me?”

The bandits were speechless.

Chen Feng’s statement that he detested violence was, in fact, the truth—it was precisely because he hated violence that he needed to use extreme violence to suppress it!

Friends familiar with The King of Fighters knew that Iori Yagami used his hands as cutting weapons, ripping flesh with his fingers, famous on the battlefield for his sheer brutality, yet he himself was a man who deeply loathed violence. His greatest dream was to carry his beloved guitar and perform with his band!

Chen Feng, with his Earthling soul, also naturally abhorred violence. But having arrived in this world, if he didn’t kill his opponents, they would kill him. For survival, he had to teach them a lesson soaked in agony!

The bandits huddled together, slowly retreating. Chen Feng’s bizarre attire under the moonlight seemed to morph into their personal nightmare.

“Ah…!” One bandit finally succumbed to the invisible pressure and the staring match, turning tail to flee.

A smile touched Chen Feng’s lips. With a flick of his right hand, a dark grappling hook shot out, skimming the ground in pursuit. With a resounding boom, the fleeing man was engulfed and incinerated into ash!

The bandits watched the patch of cerulean flame on the ground slowly fade, their terror intensifying. Escape, it seemed, was futile. If they fled, the red-haired youth would surely never let them live!

But staying meant certain death too! With death awaiting either way, they might as well fight!

“He won’t let us go!” one bandit finally shouted out the shared thought.

“You’re very astute!” Chen Feng sneered coldly, his form blurring as he instantly materialized before them.

Gyakubachi! Gyakubachi! Gyakubachi!

Three successive Gyakubachi strikes landed squarely on three bandits. These three men didn’t even have time to activate their protective Dou Qi before they were brutally torn into pieces amid sickening cracks of bone!

Blood mixed with melting snow sprayed violently in all directions.

“Roar…” Chen Feng let out a guttural cry, throwing a right hook, then a left hook…

Aoi Hana! (Sunflower!)

Three consecutive Aoi Hana strikes followed. He then leaped up, tapped a bandit’s head with his left foot, shattering the skull!

Gaishiki: Yuri Ochi! (Outer Style: Lily Drop!)

In less than a minute, none of the fourteen bandits remained. All were killed by Chen Feng’s savage means. The snow was left littered with severed limbs and a carpet of blood and gore.

“Alas, nowhere near enough practice material!” Chen Feng lamented.

Using techniques like Gyakubachi, Aoi Hana, and Yuri Ochi was meant to continually test the KOF skills in actual combat, thereby stimulating the dormant KOF memories in his mind. But these bandits were far too few; they were wiped out before he even felt the slightest flicker of deviation.

After sighing briefly about the small size of the gang, he turned toward the bearded leader, whose arm he had previously burned off.

“Don’t come any closer! If you take another step, I’ll kill her!” The bearded man shouted desperately, watching Chen Feng approaching, his face etched with panic.

Judy, shaken by the sheer carnage Chen Feng had wrought, had momentarily lost focus. The bearded man seized the opportunity, grabbing her, wrapping his remaining arm around her throat, trying to use her to threaten Chen Feng into letting him escape!

As Chen Feng walked steadily toward the brute, Judy secretly regretted her actions. She should have retreated far away when Iori Yagami began fighting. Now captured and used as a hostage, she felt intensely ashamed toward the red-haired youth who had “diligently” saved her.

“Don’t mind…” Judy cried out, but she was cut short halfway through by Chen Feng’s icy interruption.

“Go ahead and kill her! Her life or death has nothing to do with me!” Chen Feng declared, continuing his steady advance toward the bearded man.

“…” Judy had been about to utter some noble words—telling him not to worry about her, urging him to kill the bandit instead—but Chen Feng’s retort choked the words in her throat.

Was this man even human? He saved her, yet now he dismissed her fate?

However, if this young man truly did not care about her life, why had he appeared here so coincidentally when she ran into trouble with the bandits? As her threat seemed entirely unheeded, a crack appeared in the brute’s resolute certainty, and the hand gripping Judy’s throat began to tremble slightly.

He had initially assumed the red-haired youth intervened because of the girl. Capturing her was supposed to be his guaranteed escape route. He never expected such a response!

“You… really shouldn’t come closer, or I… I really will kill her!”

The bearded man’s voice began to waver, losing conviction.

“Killing requires no further words!” Chen Feng was less than five meters away when he vanished with an eerie quickness. As his cold words echoed from behind the bandit, the brute felt his throat constrict, all strength draining from his body as he crashed heavily to the ground!

“It’s best not to come out at night. I don’t patrol the moon every evening!” Chen Feng coolly tossed the parting words. Ignoring Judy, whose expression was now a complex mix of emotions, he turned and headed in the direction of the blacksmith shop.

“Patrolling the moon… Did he really not come to save me, but just to admire the moon?”

Judy’s face cycled through red and white. She bit down hard, stamping her small foot onto the ground, and ran after the red-haired youth moving ahead of her!

“Hey!” Judy called out to the youth not far ahead.

Her voice was exquisitely sweet, like a songbird emerging from a valley. In the Imperial Capital, such a sound could surely mesmerize countless admirers. Yet, the red-haired youth walking ahead seemed not to have heard her at all, continuing forward without pausing. She quickened her pace, darting in front of Chen Feng and spreading her arms wide to block his path.

“Hey…” Judy’s face flushed, and her voice carried a hint of vexed anger.

“Move aside!” Chen Feng frowned.

“Hey… Don’t assume that just because you saved me, I owe you gratitude, or that you can be rude to me!” Judy snapped, seeing Chen Feng’s blatant disregard.

Chen Feng stopped, tilting his head slightly to regard the beautiful girl standing before him.

Judy’s face flushed deeply under his unwavering gaze, her heart pounding wildly. Did he… would he…?

Just as her emotions churned, Chen Feng raised three fingers.

“First, my name is not ‘Hey.’ Second, I did not ask for your gratitude, nor am I being rude to you. Third, I am very tired now and wish to return to sleep. Please move aside!” Chen Feng finished, ignoring the slightly stunned Judy, and resumed walking toward the blacksmith shop, step by measured step.

PS: I apologize, it is too late today—actually, it was too late yesterday. I only got back from the construction site after 8 PM. By the time I ate and got to the internet café, it was already 9:30 PM. Sigh!! I’ve been typing furiously only to hit 4,000 characters now.

I've spent four consecutive nights at the internet café, and I have to work during the day. Old Ya’s body can’t take much more. Please allow me to sleep before 1 AM tonight. Since I am sleeping now, the chapter scheduled for around 8:00 AM tomorrow morning will be cancelled. I hope everyone understands!

Today while working at the site, I dozed off, and my phone tumbled into a ditch, resulting in catastrophic shattering. Old Ya picked it up and reassembled it, only to find the touchscreen broken… Misfortune truly strikes when you’re down—even drinking cold water results in choking! This was a full-touch screen knock-off Nokia N99… a broken touchscreen means it’s practically scrap metal!

What utter misery!

The update for tomorrow night will continue. Until I get my computer fixed, Old Ya will be staying overnight at the internet café, sigh. In light of my hardship, please support me with your monthly votes! (To be continued. To find out what happens next, please log in to)