Book 2 - Chapter 2

B2C2: Qin Yu after 8 years (2)

A month later, on a street of a city, it is already late at night so there is not a soul to be seen. The cold winds, which are sharp like knives, cause sumptuously-dressed Hao Tan, who is standing in the middle of the street, to narrow his eyes uncontrollably. His entire attention is being focused on a silvery-masked man before him.

This silvery-masked man is about 1.75 m tall and is standing with his arms crossed on the street. The silvery mask only reveals his mouth, nose and eyes.

‘’Hao Tan, quickly prepare well, I’ll get started soon,’’ says the silvery-masked man with an ice-cold voice.

‘’Oh, since when have the Heavenly Net’s silver card assassins been so righteous?” Hao Tan says with a cold laugh. ‘’Silver card assassins, only the assassins who have killed peak-Houtian experts can have the qualifications to get a silvery mask. Too bad … assassins all hide in the dark and use sneak attacks. If you had sneaked up on me, you might’ve been successful, but you intercepted me on the street…’’

Hao Tan is confident. His power has reached the peak of the Houtian level. A silver card assassin is also a peak-Houtian expert so the two of them are on a par. This assassin before him must be out of his head to have intercepted him openly. Hao Tan thus feels confident.

‘’This is bad. Who holds such a grudge against me that he issued a mission to kill me at the Heavenly Net? If it’s true then this is terrible.’’ Hao Tan’s head cannot help breaking a cold sweat.

The Heavenly Net is undoubtedly the number one assassination organization. Its history is longer than 1000 years and its influence has spread throughout the whole Qian Long continent. Its foundation is even more profound than that of the 3 big dynasties. The 3 big dynasties also have no way to find out who the leader of this Heavenly Net organization is. The Heavenly Net is powerful, and no one has ever had any doubts about this.

The Heavenly Net is divided into Inner Net and Outer Net.

The Inner Net is made up of the assassins whom the Heavenly Net trains by itself and who are absolutely loyal to the Heavenly Net. The Outer Net consists of some mercenary experts. These experts do not want to pledge allegiance to and join the Heavenly Net therefore they have become members of the Outer Net.

The membership of the Outer Net is very complicated. Even a great master might be one of its members. But it does not matter who a member is, they do not know the identities of the other Outer Net members. Even the Heavenly Net itself has never investigated the real identities of the Outer Net members.

The assassins are divided into gold card, silver card and copper card. Copper card assassins are the ones who can kill middle-phase Houtian experts. Silver card assassins are the ones who can kill peak Houtian experts. And gold card assassins are the ones who can kill Xiantian experts.

The 2 great systems Inner Net and Outer Net of the Heavenly Net have enabled the organization to become an extremely terrifying entity. The Chu kingdom, the biggest kingdom on the Qian Long continent, has no more than approximately 100 Xiantian experts altogether but the Heavenly Net’s Outer Net already has over 20 gold card assassins. As for the Inner Net, no one knows how many gold card assassins there are in it. But no one doubts that the Inner Net’s experts are very fearsome.

This is the Heavenly Net, an assassin organization with more than 1000 years of uninterrupted history and more influence on the Qian Long continent than any of the 3 big dynasties has.

Because his own name has appeared on the mission board of the Heavenly Net, Hao Tan is worried.

‘‘Are you ready?’’ says the silvery-masked man indifferently. Hao Tan immediately focuses his entire attention on the silver card assassin before him. His internal energy starts to circulate at a very fast speed. In an instant he is ready to deliver the most powerful strike.

The corners of the silvery-mask man’s mouth slightly curve up all of a sudden. He is smiling.

Afterimages!

2 afterimages of the silvery-masked man’s entire body unexpectedly appear all of a sudden. One afterimage is ahead of the other. One is on the right hand side and the other is on the left. In a moment, a strong gust of air has reached Hao Tan’s face, causing his hair to flutter up. Hao Tan cannot help narrowing his eyes.

“What a frightening speed!” Hao Tan is startled. Only by concentrating energy in his eyes can he barely see the man’s shape. Unable to see anything else, Hao Tan starts to attack the shape in front of him madly. The various silhouettes of his legs spread all over the air and attack the whole body of the silvery-masked man.

“Ah!’’ Hao Tan suddenly feels an acute pain in his right foot. He cannot help uttering a miserable shout with his eyes protruding. At the same time he hears a clack sound of bones being broken while his whole body is sent flying. It subsequently smashes fiercely onto a wall on one side of the street.

The silvery-masked man’s frosty voice rises: “Your speed is still alright, but your explosiveness is too bad!”

In a mere moment, the silvery-masked man actually broke Hao Tan’s right ankle directly.

“Humph.” With one hand Hao Tan props himself against the wall and stands up. He looks at the silvery-masked man in front of him with hatred: “Your fingers are really strong. Your speed is also very fast. Too bad they’re not enough for you to kill me.’’ Hao Tan could feel how strong the enemy’s fingers are. They even broke the defense of his internal energy in a grab.

“Really?” The corners of the silvery-masked man curve up again. At the same time, his body becomes a blur and creates another afterimage.

Hao Tan immediately opens his eyes wide like 2 balls. His entire body’s internal energy is completely activated. He stares at the silvery-masked man with all of his attention: ‘’It doesn’t matter if my lifespan will greatly decrease, I must execute this one strike.’’ There is a hint of ruthlessness in Hao Tan’s eyes. His face becomes pasty at once.

The silvery-masked man seems to also notice Hao Tan’s changes but he continues to attack.

“Soul-Destroying Claw!”

Hao Tan suddenly shouts loudly. His whole face becomes savage. His 2 claws attack the silvery-masked man before him at an extremely fast speed. The speed of the claws has reached a terrifying level. There are even various black streams of energy between the 2 claws which connect them to each other.

Both of them have excellent claw techniques but it seems Hao Tan’s Soul-Destroying Claw is more freakish. In terms of speed, he is inferior to the silvery-masked man. He cannot even touch his enemy, but …

“Gotcha!” A black stream of energy has unexpectedly tied the silvery-masked man’s hands up in front of Hao Tan, who has become extremely excited: ‘’Ha-ha, I can see that you’re fast. But even if you were faster, would you be as fast as my Soul-Destroying Silks? Your 2 hands have been tied up, now prepare to die. Ha-ha, huh? Why aren’t you using internal energy to resist?’’

Hao Tan looks doubtfully at the silvery-masked man.

‘’You got excited to soon.’’

A shaft of black light flashes by.

‘’How … can?’’ Hao Tan’s eyes pop out of his head then he falls down powerlessly with a loud thud.

“That claw technique was really fantastic. It even generated a silk-like kind of energy.” The silvery-masked man takes off his silvery mask. He is an unfamiliar man. This man’s body suddenly stirs repeatedly while emitting cracking sounds. The body unexpectedly becomes taller and his face also starts to change.

After a short while, the silvery-masked man who is about 1.75 m tall has changed into 1.8 m tall Qin Yu.

If someone saw this scene, they would surely be extremely shocked. Just now Qin Yu used the Appearance and Bone Changing art, which can be considered the peak of disguising arts. By means of controlling the muscles and bones of the whole body, the Appearance and Bone Changing art allows the user to alter his face and height.

Generally, only Xiantian experts can manage to change their appearances thanks to Xiantian energy, which means, in the eyes of other people, the Appearance and Bone Changing art can only be used by Xiantian experts.

However Qin Yu has been trying hard to control his entire body’s muscles and bones since he started training as a little kid. He has been training for 8 years and, moreover, has often been absorbing internal energy into his flesh and bones, therefore the flexibility and toughness of his whole body’s muscles and bones have reached a shocking level. Depending on his muscles and bones alone, Qin Yu can still change his appearance.

‘’Evildoers will cause their own violent deaths!’’ When Qin Yu has taken Hao Tan’s head, his body shoots up into the air. There seems to be something high up on one side. It is none other than Xiao Hei. There is a small box on its body. Qin Yu puts the head into the box then sits down on Xiao Hei.

‘’Xiao Hei, let’s go!’’ Qin Yu warmly pats Xiao Hei’s neck.

Xiao Hei immediately utters a happy cry and soars into the sky.

Sitting on Xiao Hei’s back, Qin Yu looks down at the boundless ground below then looks up and feels the strong winds of the late night.

Following the great battle that day, Qin Yu determined to practice outside through fighting. His targets were mostly some evildoers. After a period of time, Qin Yu joined the Outer Net of the Heavenly Net and became an assassin named Liu Xing! The targets of the missions he has chosen were all evildoers who had provoked the fury of both Heaven and men.

In this way, firstly, he can eliminate some scums and, secondly, he can practice real close-quarters combat techniques as well.

‘’Xiao Hei, after turning in this mission, we’ll return to Misty Villa directly. Let’s go!’’ says Qin Yu laughingly. Uttering a cry, the black eagle speeds up greatly at once and flies eastward like a beam of light.

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End of b2c2.