Quickly conquer the martial arts world, and let your fists dominate the heavens!

This was the opportunity they had been waiting for. The two experts withdrew and opened fire instantly.

Bullets flew everywhere.

A stray bullet struck the crystal chandelier, and with a crash, half of the chandelier frame broke off, and dozens of LED lights poured down, shattering into countless glass shards on the ground. The main hall suddenly dimmed by half.

The moment He Zhongming heard the gunshot, he instinctively took a step to the left. His fear of firearms was much greater than Chen Zhan's.

This allowed him to completely distance himself from the struggle with Chen Zhan.

The distance between the two increased from one zhang to more than three zhang.

However, this seemingly safer move actually puts him in a deadly situation, because while he was fast, Chen Zhan was even faster. As he moved to the side, Chen Zhan had already focused his attention on the firearms, and he would follow even faster.

The bullets completely separated Yan Chongfeng and He Zhongming, making it impossible for Yan Chongfeng to cross the line to help.

Chen Zhan was waiting for this brief interval.

His body moved at the exact same instant the gunshot rang out, advancing instead of retreating, taking small steps forward.

With the front foot on the ground and the back foot pushing off, the body leans forward, and the center of gravity is pushed to the limit.

This step covered an enormous distance, more than two zhang (approximately 6.6 meters), bringing him right in front of He Zhongming.

Dan Jin (a type of internal energy) surged from his dantian and poured into his fists.

He raised his hand and delivered a powerful parry!

The hammer struck like a pendulum, or like an old monk striking a bell; even as a hail of bullets was about to engulf it, it remained remarkably steady, a steadiness that sent shivers down one's spine.

He Zhongming naturally wouldn't let Chen Zhan kill him. He crossed his arms and formed the most solid defensive stance of the Xinyi Liuhe Quan – the "Cross Handle".

The cross handle is the signature defensive move of Xin Yi Liu He.

With arms crossed like an iron gate, chest tightly locked, and strength extended outward, this stance is specifically designed to withstand heavy blows from opponents. At the peak of the Transformation Realm, the cross-shaped stance can block any move from a martial artist of the same level.

This strike came without interference from behind or amidst gunfire.
The two were not at the same level, and Chen Zhan was giving it his all.

"boom!"

A terrible cracking sound came from He Zhongming's arms, and he screamed as his figure flew through the air. But he didn't fly far before Chen Zhan caught up, his five fingers shooting out in a snake-like motion, spreading out and lightly pressing on He Zhongming's face.

He Zhongming's eyes changed color, because he couldn't judge the force in Chen Zhan's five fingers, nor could he block them all.

"How come you know how to do that too???"

Chen Zhan naturally wouldn't answer him. He didn't even ask about the other's lineage. Having come this far, even if there were some lineage, they would still have to fight to the death. It was better not to ask.

It's good to be a fool.

With a whoosh.

A hand brushed across his face, and He Zhongming screamed as his eyes flew out of their sockets and he was thrown into a hail of bullets.

Without his eyes, his heart was shattered by Chen Zhan the next second.

He Zhongming froze for a moment, then slowly fell forward, lying face down in the pile of broken bricks, and remained motionless.

On the other side, Yan Chongfeng witnessed the entire process of He Zhongming falling down.

In just two or three breaths, He Zhongming died too quickly, unbelievably quickly. He had thought that the two of them working together could fight Chen Zhan to a standstill, and if it was just one person, he should be able to hold him off.

His heart sank to the bottom.

He Zhongming was stronger than him; the hardness of the cross-shaped handle was thicker than any of his defensive moves. Even He Zhongming couldn't withstand it head-on, let alone him.

Staying means death.

Yan Chongfeng turned and ran, having no hope of defeating the foreign musketeers. He had worked in the Prince's mansion and had seen muskets used to kill people. They were indeed invincible on flat ground, but in this building, the muskets couldn't even hit him, let alone Chen Zhan, a Dan realm expert.

Tongbei Quan's footwork is agile; his figure leaves a trail of afterimages in the hall, his toes barely touching the ground as he leaps towards the main entrance with incredible speed.

He darted out of the hall and disappeared into the night.

Chen Zhan did not pursue.

Yan Chongfeng's movements were indeed fast. His lightness skill in Tongbei Quan ranked among the top three in Northern boxing styles. In a few flashes, he disappeared into the darkness outside the door.

Whether you can catch up or not is one thing; whether you have the opportunity to catch up is another.

The moment He Zhongming was killed, flames from the direction of the duty room had already engulfed the area, with more than a dozen bullets crisscrossing and forming a dense net that covered the entire area between him and the main entrance.

He reached down to the ground, his palm scraping across the shards of crystal scattered on the floor, and grabbed a handful.

He crouched down, moved sideways close to the ground, and in a few steps slipped into an archive room on the left side of the main hall.

Bullets chased after his afterimage, thudding against the walls of the archives room. Brick dust fell in a flurry, penetrating the thin wall, flying half a foot above his head, and embedding themselves in the wooden bookshelf behind him.

The gunfire stopped.

The guardhouse was reloading; the Enfield rifles weren't loaded very quickly, and even with a dozen or so men taking turns firing, there were still gaps in their firing schedules.

Jason stood at the top of the stairs on the second floor, leaning half his body out to look down. The main hall was filled with smoke, and dust and glass shards were still floating in the air, making it impossible to see anything clearly.

He Zhongming lay motionless in the pile of broken bricks in the corner.

Yan Chongfeng has disappeared.

Chen Zhan has also disappeared.

Jason's hands gripped the stair railing, his knuckles cracking as he churned through countless possibilities in his mind.

If Chen Zhan ran away, that would be alright. At least the Municipal Council was saved, those foreign bigwigs upstairs were saved, and his life was saved too.

If Chen Zhan hadn't escaped and was still inside the building, he would have continued killing...

He dared not think any further.

"Fire! Shoot into that house and force him out!"

He yelled at the top of his lungs downstairs, his voice trembling. Then, feeling it wasn't enough, he added, "Everyone, push up there!"

The police officers in the duty room finished loading their guns, and the muzzles of their guns were once again sticking out of the window, pointing towards the archives room.

"Bang bang bang—!"

More than a dozen bullets rained down simultaneously, hitting the walls and door frames of the archives room. Bricks and stones flew everywhere, wooden doors were riddled with holes, hinges broke, and half of the door panel lay askew on the ground.

After one round of shooting, another round begins.

After two rounds of firing, the gunpowder smoke made the police officers themselves cough.

Jason peered down the stairs; the doorway to the archives was dark, and there was no sound from inside.

There were no screams, no retaliation, no footsteps.

A sliver of hope rose in his heart.

Perhaps Chen Zhan was injured and took advantage of the chaos to climb out of another window and escape?

"You two, go to the conference room and tell the others to evacuate immediately. They should leave through the back door, and you'll be escorted."

He gave an order to the two police officers beside him, and without saying a word, the two turned and ran towards the conference hall on the second floor.

Jason himself led the rest of his men down the stairs, guns pointed forward, and slowly approached the archives room.

He even silently prayed in his heart: Please leave, please leave, preferably injured, escape directly, and never come back.

The moment my foot touched the marble floor on the first floor, a dull thud came from the direction of the archives.

It wasn't the sound of gunfire.

That was the sound of a wall collapsing.

The entire partition wall exploded in the middle, bricks and stones flew outwards, and smoke and dust billowed out, choking everyone so much that they couldn't open their eyes.

Amidst the smoke and dust, a figure emerged from behind the shattered wall.

They didn't rush over.

Jason squinted and, through the swirling dust, saw the figure raise its hand.

With a flick of the finger.

A few shards of glass shot from his fingertips, whistling through the air, over Jason and the policemen's heads, and headed straight for the ceiling. It wasn't an attack.

It's a light.

The crystal chandelier had been broken in half during the previous battle, and the remaining half was hanging precariously from the ceiling, barely maintaining the last bit of light in the main hall.

The shards of glass struck precisely where the chandelier met the ceiling, breaking the brass hook.

"boom--"

The remaining half of the crystal chandelier crashed down, hundreds of LED beads shattered into dust, and the chandelier frame slammed onto the marble floor with a piercing metallic shriek, sparks flying everywhere.

The lights in the main hall went out almost instantly.

The power supply is very poor now. Even in the concession area, only a few important locations have their own generators to supply electricity.

The Municipal Council was one of them, but even inside, they used a mix of electric and oil lamps.

Immediately afterwards, several more shards of glass flew out, extinguishing the only two remaining wall lamps in the corridor. The lampshades shattered, and the flames of the oil lamps went out with a "poof".

Several more flashes, and the light bulb shattered.

The entire Municipal Council was plunged into darkness.

From the main hall to the corridor, and from the corridor to the stairwell, all the light sources were destroyed within moments, leaving only a faint ray of light coming through the window of the duty room, illuminating a small patch of floor.

In the conference hall on the second floor, Leavis was directing several foreign officers to the evacuation route when he suddenly felt the light dim and all the lights in the corridor go out.

He walked to the door and glanced into the corridor. It was pitch black outside, and he couldn't see anything.

From downstairs came the panicked shouts and footsteps of the police, mixed with the clicking of gun bolts being pulled back, creating chaos.

"What's going on? Where are He and Yan?"

No one answered him.

A few candles were still burning in the meeting room, their dim light illuminating the pale faces of everyone present.

Several foreign officers drew their pistols, pointing them at the entrance to the conference hall, their eyes fixed on the darkness of the corridor.

Levi cursed and called over a guard: "Go, turn the lights back on."

Just as the guard reached the door, a short scream came from downstairs, which was then drowned out by a louder commotion.

The guard stopped at the threshold, not stepping out.

In the darkness, the sounds coming from the direction of the first floor grew increasingly fragmented and sparse.

First came a burst of gunfire, one after another.

Then the gunfire became sporadic, interspersed with the crisp sound of metal falling to the ground.

That was the sound of a gun slipping from one's hand.

Then came the sound of footsteps, chaotic, running, and stumbling.

Then came the muffled cracking of bones, one, two, three.

Finally, even the muffled thud stopped.

Chen Zhan stood in the darkness; he didn't need the light.

The five senses of a master at the Dan realm are even more acute in the darkness. The sound of each person's breathing, heartbeat, and the vibration of their footsteps on the ground are as clear as daytime.

The police officers couldn't see him, but he could see everyone.

One-sided hunting.

The first police officer died in the corridor. He fired a shot into the darkness, the flash illuminating his terrified face and Chen Zhan, who was already standing beside him.

The echo of the gunshot still reverberated, and the man had already fallen.

The second one died at the corner of the stairs. He heard his companion's gunshot and screams, and was so frightened that he turned around and ran upstairs, his footsteps making a rapid creaking sound on the mahogany steps.

I ran up less than five steps when my neck was grabbed from behind, and the cracking sound of my dislocated cervical vertebrae being dislocated was masked by the sound of my footsteps.

The other officers fared even worse. Unable to see each other, they could only rely on sound to determine their location, running and bumping around in the dark, firing their guns indiscriminately in any direction. Bullets hit walls, pillars, and even their own men.

Chen Zhan moved through them with extremely light steps and extremely heavy palm strikes.

Each person he passed only needed a palm strike, a punch, or a karate chop—clean, efficient, and without any unnecessary moves.

He didn't even use any martial arts techniques; he only used the most basic force output.

Slap your chest with your palm, and your heart and lungs will shatter.

He used a hand chop to cut across the neck, severing the trachea.

The fist slammed into his temple, causing his skull to cave in.

Simple and unpretentious, one hit and one kill.

These people couldn't even last a single move against him, a stark contrast to the dangerous and protracted battles he had fought against He Zhongming and Yan Chongfeng.

Darkness, fear, and chaos had already done most of the work for him.

His job was only to harvest.

When he killed the seventh person, Chen Zhan slowed down.

It wasn't physical exhaustion, nor was it an injury; it was a weariness that welled up from the bottom of my heart.

He stood in the darkness for a moment, listening to the panting and footsteps of two or three policemen in the distance, desperately fleeing towards the exit.

He didn't chase after them.

Weariness is not physical fatigue, but mental fatigue.

He killed many people, from the first day he arrived in Tianjin: Liu the Shadow, his three henchmen, Iron-Tongued Ma Liu, Huang Sihai, Yin Fu, Charles, the thugs of the Canal Gang, the police officers of the police station, and the people in front of him.

One after another.

After they've killed them all, another batch arrives.

Foreigners are never short of manpower. If Charles dies, there's Jason. If Jason dies, there's another one. The colonial machines of the great powers keep running. They can easily fill the mere Tianjin concession.

1895 years.

Five years until that catastrophe.

Five years later, the Eight-Nation Alliance entered the city, and Tianjin's population of one million was reduced to only one hundred thousand. Corpses filled the Haihe River, and even infants could not escape the carnage.

He can't change anything.

Kill one group of foreigners, and another will come. Blow up the Swire Trading Company, and it will be rebuilt. Burn down the consulate, and it will be renovated. Massacre the police station, and they will recruit new people.

All the chaos he created was but a passing breeze in the face of this vast colonial system.

The wind has passed, and everything is back to normal.

He looked towards the second floor.

The people in the conference hall were the real power holders in the Tianjin concession. Killing them would at least paralyze the foreign influence in Tianjin for a while.

But it only lasted for a while.

Feeling listless.

These four words rose from the bottom of his heart, and he found them somewhat amusing.

Having traveled from the Song Dynasty to the present day, wandering through various realms, experiencing countless bloodshed and killings, I have never felt this way of thinking before.

In this era, he experienced a sense of loneliness. No one understood him, no one supported him, and many people were only forced to do things because of his coercion.

At this point, it is far too early for people to rise up after truly suffering boundless hardship.

Chen Zhan stood in the darkness and closed his eyes for a few breaths.

When I opened my eyes again, the weariness in them had disappeared.

Weary as I am, those who deserve to die must still be killed. (End of Chapter)