Overdraw the future and become a peerless martial god

Chapter 11 Undercurrent
"Come again!"

Chu Ning grabbed the second broken sword, the blade engraved with the "Broken Mountain" starting stance. Before the blade flashed, he had already seen the trajectory of the move and swung the rusted sword diagonally upward.

puff!
The moment the blade pierced the phantom's heart, a flood of training memories flooded into his mind: the tedium of swinging the sword a hundred thousand times in a rainstorm, the danger of fighting against an entry-level warrior, the excruciating pain of his meridians being torn apart by lightning.
"I see."

The lightning pattern in Chu Ning's pupils suddenly expanded, and the rusty knife was like a poisonous snake spitting out its tongue, instantly shattering the third broken knife.

The sword light swept across the wasteland like a raging tide.

By the time the seven thousandth blade fragment shattered, Chu Ning's blade momentum had already unleashed a thunderstorm. Each move had been tempered thousands of times, every muscle memorizing how to break the attack with minimal effort.

The last broken blade transformed into a red-faced warrior, the Jingzhe Blade intact in his hand. Chu Ning was covered in blood, his right arm exposed, but he grinned, "Finally, the real culprit."

The moment the two swords collided, the wasteland collapsed.

"The flaw is here!"

He suddenly turned around and took a wrong step, and the rusty knife pierced the red-faced warrior's armpit three inches at an incredible angle, which was exactly the weak spot that was corroded by the poison powder that year.

boom--

The moment his consciousness returned to the medicine pool, Chu Ning in reality suddenly opened his eyes.

Only three breaths had passed in the outside world, but he had already been practicing hard in the Sword Tomb for three years!
Chu Yun's hands holding the medicine bowl trembled in the morning light, and the brown medicine reflected the panic in her eyes.

"Ning'er," she said, looking at the newly added burn mark on her brother's back that was still bleeding, "this scar."

"It was rubbed against me when I was tempering my body." Chu Ning pulled over the coarse cloth shirt.

Suddenly, a copper bell rang outside the window; an old man selling pancakes passed by with his cart. A smile crept onto Chu Yun's pale face. "Even more punctual than the midday smoke from the village chimneys."

Chu Ning paused while scooping porridge.

Half a month ago, he finally brought his sister to the county town and let her live in a warm courtyard. Although the courtyard was simple, with only a main room and a small kitchen, it was much better than the shabby hut in the village.

After settling his sister down, Chu Ning plunged into cultivation.

Every morning, he would go to the Benlei Martial Arts School to practice the Jinglei Sword Technique. In the afternoon, he would practice archery and body movements alone in the mountains and forests outside the city. At night, he would sit in meditation to strengthen his qi and blood, consolidating what he had learned during the day. Day after day, his practice never stopped.

After two weeks of arduous training, Chu Ning not only gained a deeper understanding of the Thunder Blade Technique, but also reached a pinnacle of archery prowess. Now, he could confidently shoot a leaf a hundred paces away while running, and his movements were as nimble as a ghost, even allowing him to silently glide through a forest littered with dead leaves.

But just when he thought everything was going in the right direction, a horrifying thing broke into his sight.

In the southeast corner of the county town, hungry beggars huddled in the corner, and ragged children chased stray dogs on the muddy streets.

Chu Ning originally came here just to buy some coarse cloth clothes, however, he accidentally heard some strange rumors.

"Have you heard? Several more children have disappeared recently."

"Yes, there were two last month, and three more this month. The government doesn't care, and we can't even find a trace of them."

"Bah, those damned officials in the government, how could they care about the lives of these poor people?"

Several old men in tattered clothes sat together, talking in low voices.

Chu Ning frowned slightly, feeling a little uneasy in his heart.

He remembered the rumors he had heard a few days ago, that someone was secretly kidnapping children, and the final fate of these children was to be beaten and left on the street to beggars.

"Gathering and dismembering..."

Chu Ning clenched his teeth, murderous intent surging in his eyes.

These people dared to do such a heartless thing, he couldn't just sit back and watch!

He wanted to find out what force was behind this group of people and then eradicate them completely!
"Tanghulu——"

The children's joyful cries suddenly changed. Chu Ning's pupils suddenly constricted as three disheveled beggars tumbled out of the alley. The smallest one had his right leg bent at an odd angle, maggots crawling from the festering wound.

"Please give me some food." The older boy held up a chipped pottery bowl, revealing old wounds on his sleeves that were intertwined with whip marks.

The copper coin left a damp, cold stain on his palm, and Chu Ning froze in his tracks. The cinnabar mole behind the boy's ear was blindingly red. Yesterday, as he passed the county government office, the portrait of the grain merchant's young son on the reward notice fluttered in the wind.

"Brother." The boy's Adam's apple rolled under the dirt, and the chipped pottery bowl hit the bluestone with a crisp sound.

The sound overlapped with the scene in his memory. In front of his father's coffin, the pottery jar that the debt collector kicked over also broke into crescent-shaped porcelain pieces, which pierced his numb knees.

The rusty knife trembled slightly in its sheath, and Chu Ning's knuckles turned white from the force.

He clearly saw new wounds overlapping old ones under the boy's torn clothes, and the trajectory of the whip marks was similar to the trajectory of the short whip when the scarred man kicked the door.

"Hot pancakes—"

The old man selling pancakes shouted, accompanied by sparks. Chu Ning caught a glimpse of the burn marks left by the pliers on the bluestone.

The boy suddenly trembled violently, and pus and blood oozed out from his bent leg bones.

Chu Ning's hand that was handing over the money suddenly turned over, and three copper coins turned into streams of light and shot towards the pancake stall.

"Brother, will you take me to eat some plain noodles?" He smiled and handed over the money.

Hope shone in the boy's eyes, but he was startled by a cough behind him. Chu Ning looked over and saw the old man selling pancakes stirring the charcoal with tongs. Sparks flew onto the bluestone slab, carving a distorted "king" character.

"It's going to rain." The old man suddenly looked up, his cloudy right eye turning a strange gray. "It's better for you to avoid bad luck."

He pretended to turn around, and the hidden power in his sleeve shattered the wine bag at his waist. The moment the strong liquor was spilled, lightning patterns shot from his palm into the cracks in the ground, following the blue brick pattern and directly hitting the old man's feet!

Shila-

The charcoal fire exploded three feet high. The iron tongs the old man had flung out as he retreated suddenly transformed into a poisonous snake. Chu Ning spun around and slashed at the snake's head. Before it even touched the ground, a poisonous mist exploded, sending the surrounding civilians sprawling to the ground like puppets.

"What a great thunderbolt!" The old man tore off the human skin mask, revealing half of his face, which had been burned by fire. "It's a pity you can't save these people."

The words stopped abruptly.

Chu Ning's knife tip was already against his Adam's apple. "Taking a living being and dismembering him is simply inhumane."

"Humanity?" The ghost-faced man suddenly grinned, his mouth ripping to the roots of his ears. "Deacon Chu, do you want to be a saint?"

A hoarse laugh rolled out from his Adam's apple beneath the blade. "When Deacon Chu cut off someone's finger in the martial arts gym, did you ever think about the word 'humanity'?"

"If you want to be a saint, I will make you the King of Hell!" The ghost-faced man's one eye flashed with a crazy gray light, and suddenly three puppet threads covered with pus and blood shot out from his sleeves. They wrapped around the little beggar's neck like a poisonous snake and made him retreat violently.

When Chu Ning's rusty knife chopped the puppet's threads, the ghost-faced man had already rushed out ten feet.

Three children hung from his waist like rag dolls, and the wound on the girl with a broken leg plowed a dark red groove in the ground.

The closer you get to the City God Temple, the stronger the stench in the air becomes, mixed with the smell of rust and pus and blood.

Several figures gathered in the temple, one of them was holding an account book and recording something.

"This time the harvest is good, with five more healthy children. The number the master gave us is almost there."

"Humph, anyway, no one cares about these poor kids. If they're useless, they can be thrown on the street and we can make a fortune."

"The situation in the city is tense lately, so you have to be careful."

Chu Ning stared coldly at everything in the temple, his hand slowly tightening around the hilt of the knife at his waist.

".Please, don't cut my tongue."

The girl's sobs were cut off by the sound of breaking wind.

Chu Ning dodged and pressed himself against the temple wall, his rusty knife reflecting the scene inside the hall: more than twenty pairs of eyeballs were piled on the table, placed in gold-painted porcelain bowls with a pearly luster.

"The mistress loves to hear the blind man sing Lotus Fall." The scarred steward used a hook knife to pry open the girl's jaw, and the blade moved along the base of her tongue. "Leave half of the tongue, so that the cry will sound tragic enough."

(End of this chapter)