With his incredibly sharp vision, Sevrin immediately spotted the black headscarves worn by these people and the wolf-head patterns printed upon them.
He understood in a flash.
The Black Wolf Bandits had essentially delivered themselves to his doorstep for a beating.
As for why these bandits had come to Nina Town or who had brought them?
Honestly, that didn't matter to Sevrin at all.
Who was he?
He was a Wood-Rank Lieutenant of the Graew Demon-Slaying Bureau, a legitimate government official.
And these people? They were a mob of robbers and thieves.
Does an official need a reason to kill bandits?
"I just broke through to a new realm and my hands were itching; then you lot delivered yourselves right to me."
Amidst the deep blue sky, Sevrin threw back his head and laughed, "Hahaha, to hell with your reasons! I'll butcher a thousand or so of you first to satisfy my craving, then we'll talk!"
With that, he turned and stomped violently against the sky.
BANG!
A series of explosions rang out as air currents billowed.
The air within a ten-meter radius was instantly stomped into a vacuum by Sevrin, and he used the resulting counterforce to hurtle toward the earth below.
SWISH
The gap of several hundred meters vanished in an eye-blink.
But just as Sevrin was about to reach the ground, he faced the crowd of bandits looking up at him and abruptly opened his mouth, unleashing a terrifying, visible sonic shriek.
ROAR
In an instant, the dozens, even hundreds, of bandits closest to him were shaken so violently they trembled all over. Blood flowed from their eyes, ears, noses, and mouths as they collapsed to the ground, their lives uncertain.
Bandits further away, while not bleeding from their orifices, clutched their ears and wailed in pain, falling to the ground one after another, having lost more than half their combat strength.
At that moment, Sevrin finally reached the ground, slamming into the crowd like a meteor with a cruel grin.
BOOM!
As if hit by a missile, the area within dozens of meters of his landing point instantly cratered by two feet. The dozen or so bandits standing in that zone were pulverized into blood mist and minced meat on the spot, splattering everywhere. The bandits further out shrieked in terror and scrambled backward.
Before these wolf-bandits could retreat further, two crimson whip-shadows lashed out from the crater amidst the dust and fog. Like high-speed rotating giant propellers, they swept through a ten-meter radius in an instant, brutally shredding the bandits into sprays of blood, bone fragments, and minced meat that coated the ground.
Only after slaughtering these dozens of bandits did the swirling dust finally disperse, revealing Sevrin's tall, inhumanly robust frame and his murderous face.
"Sevrin?!"
On the high platform in the distance, Coeu witnessed this figure and roared, "The demon underground was him? How can he be this powerful?!"
As a Steel-Realm martial artist, Coeu's vision was naturally sharp.
Though Sevrin had only briefly tested his skills, his terrifying performance, soaring into the sky and plunging back down like a living star of slaughter, allowed Coeu to glimpse some of his true depth.
He was certain that this Sevrin had absolutely surpassed the ordinary Steel-Realm.
"And what happened with those underground disturbances?" Coeu ground his teeth, his pupils trembling. "Did he do that as well? That, that isn't something a Steel-Realm martial artist can achieve!"
While his thoughts were in turmoil, Sevrin had already begun his merciless slaughter of the bandits.
"Hahahaha!"
Under the terrified gaze of thousands of wolf-bandits, Sevrin let out a sinister laugh and stomped his foot violently against the ground.
BANG!
The earth shuddered as his blurred form instantly shattered layers of air. Trailing a booming howl of wind, he hurtled toward the largest gathering of bandits.
His running speed was far too great; the gale he generated actually swept nearby bandits off their feet and threw them into the air. They crashed back down with twisted limbs and shattered bones, dying piteous deaths.
As for the groups of bandits Sevrin collided with head-on during his charge, they couldn't even leave behind an intact corpse. They were pulverized into a slurry of flesh and blood on the spot, plastered across the walls and ground.
Bandits further away were also unable to escape their fate.
The two crimson steel whips in Sevrin's hands lashed out in every direction like reapers of death. Whomever they struck died; whomever they lashed exploded.
In a short time, the streets and alleys near the tea-stall and the wider area of Nina Town were stained crimson by flowing blood. Across the dark red ground and in every corner lay mangled corpses that looked like torn sacks of cloth.
This scene was so horrific it was infuriating. The residents of Nina Town, hiding in their homes and peeking through cracks in doors and windows, were so terrified they squeezed their eyes shut, not daring to look further.
Facing all this, the Black Wolf Bandits were so frightened by Sevrin's brutal slaughter that they shrieked and wailed, fleeing in all directions. Like a flock of timid quails, they could only run for their lives, unable to offer the slightest resistance.
"Run! Run fast!"
"Help! Second Leader, save us!"
"The demon is coming!"
"Dammit, let's fight back!"
"AAAAHH! F*** it, let's kill you!"
Among them, a few dozen bandits carrying guns had retreated into a dead-end alley. Seeing Sevrin strolling calmly toward them with his blood-red steel whips and realizing they had no way out, they finally broke. Screaming and cursing in a frenzy, they opened fire on him.
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT
A storm of bullets instantly enveloped Sevrin.
But he neither dodged nor moved, allowing the barrage to strike him at will.
In an instant, sparks from shattered bullets danced across his entire body.
"I don't even feel an itch," Sevrin said calmly amidst the fierce hail of bullets. He reached out his hand, watching as the bullets flew "slowly" toward him, striking the skin of his palm and exploding into sparks and dust. He couldn't help but marvel, "Have I become a monster?"
With that, he intentionally widened his eyes as several bullets flew toward his face, letting seven or eight slugs strike his pupils directly.
Yet even then, with multiple bullets hitting his eyes, Sevrin only felt a faint sensation, similar to the mild feeling of an eye-drop, so weak it was almost negligible.
This forced Sevrin to marvel once again: "It seems I truly am a monster. Well, I like being a monster."
He then let out a wide laugh and casually lashed a steel whip forward.
SLASH, CRACK, THUD
Following a series of sounds of tearing flesh and bone, the dozens of armed bandits were snapped in half by Sevrin's whip, turning into a pile of mangled corpses.
"I just heard someone calling for the Second Leader," Sevrin said, shaking the blood off his steel whip with a cold smile. "Could it be that Coeu is here too?"
"..."
After interrogating a few bandits, Sevrin followed their directions to a high wooden platform.
But it was empty now; not a soul remained.
It seemed Coeu was as timid as a mouse and had bolted the moment he saw Sevrin from a distance.
"I don't believe your speed can be that fast," Sevrin chuckled. He gripped the pair of steel whips and, with a relaxed demeanor, suddenly lashed them against the ground beneath his feet.
"Flood-Dragon Submerges Water, Shock!"
BANG!
As his steel whips shattered the ground for ten feet around him, Sevrin used the counterforce to soar into the sky, instantly reaching an altitude of several hundred meters.
Following the vague guidance of his Level 3 Wild Nature intuition, he turned toward the southeast. His pupils constricted like needles as he stared into the distance, ten miles away.
There, a blurry figure with its back to Sevrin was sprinting away at a frantic speed of over thirty meters per second.
That fleeing figure was undoubtedly Coeu.
"Ah, move fast, do you? You've run quite far in such a short time. Unfortunately, it's completely meaningless."
With a mocking sneer, Sevrin spread his arms and swung his whips, unleashing the "Flood-Dragon Submerges Water" move once again.
BOOM!
With a violent sonic boom and billowing air currents, he shot toward Coeu's direction like a swift, sharp arrow.
...
"Faster, faster, faster!"
Coeu's eyes were wide with rage as he sprinted, teeth clenched. He didn't dare look back even once, fearing that slowing down even a fraction would cost him any hope of survival.
"A Valiarior! He's definitely a Valiarior! Such savage and overbearing momentum can only be achieved by a Valiarior-level martial artist! But that, that is a realm only Master has reached!"
He screamed inwardly while running for his life, "Sevrin... he's so young! How could he have cultivated to such a terrifying realm? I must, I must reach Master quickly! Only he... can deal with that guy now!"
WHOOSH ——
While Coeu was still in full flight, a long, crimson steel whip shot forward from behind with extreme speed. With a THWACK, it pierced through his iron-hard back, chest, and stomach, pinning him firmly to the ground.
"AAAAHHH! SEVRIN!"
Like a pathetic grasshopper pinned to a long steel whip, Coeu struggled to move his legs, which had lost all sensation, while twisting his head back to snarl at the approaching figure. "You're vicious, Sevrin! Disabling half my body right off the bat! Just you wait, my Master will avenge me!"
"Your Master?"
Sevrin, strolling toward him at a leisurely pace, said serenely, "From the sound of it, he seems quite formidable."
As he spoke, he looked up at Coeu's personal interface ——
[ Character Name: Coeu
Level: Mainstream Martial Arts → Steel Tendons and Iron Bones
Mastered Skills: " Quadrant Fist "" Poison-Embedded Finger "" Black Tortoise Guardian Physique "" Phase-less Wind-Severance "" Spring-Autumn Blade Arts "
Special Traits: [ Level 2 Robust Physique ][ Level 2 Stamina ][ Level 1 Toxicity ][ Level 2 Iron Body ][ Level 1 Technique ]
Expert Shards: None ]
Coeu had learned quite a few techniques, but the only ones with real value were the "Black Tortoise Guardian Physique" and the "Phase-less Wind-Severance".
The former was somewhat similar to the "Iron Barrel Coiled-Bell Armor", a technique primarily focused on defense, but it went deeper and further along the martial path. If cultivated to its peak, it could even reach the Valiarior realm that Sevrin now occupied.
As for the latter, it was a unique technique that didn't enhance attack, defense, or agility.
The technique followed the principles of using the phase-less to counter the phased, the non-phased to overcome the phased, and the concept of "colorless and phase-less" from beginning to end. It possessed only one effect.
Namely: during combat, the practitioner of this art could use the impact of their limbs or weapons to forcibly disrupt the paths of the opponent's internal force circulation. This would cause the enemy's force to become chaotic and disordered, leading to a significant loss in combat power, or in severe cases, even a drop in their martial realm.
It was worth noting that if this martial secret technique was cultivated to its peak, it too could reach the Valiarior realm.
Since Coeu possessed two techniques capable of reaching that realm yet had not attained the Valiarior rank himself, one could deduce that the person who taught him these arts was indeed his Master.
"Bah!"
Coeu spat violently and sneered, "Kid, you think I'm going to tell you anything? Just wait to be beaten to death by my Master."
Hearing this, Sevrin crossed the thirty meter gap in an instant, stood before Coeu, and delivered a heavy slap. He then said coldly:
"Coeu, oh Coeu. You're in such a pathetic state and you're still acting tough? Who are you trying to impress?"
With half his face swollen, Coeu spat out a mouthful of broken teeth and let out a raspy, cold laugh:
"Hehehe ~ I've lived half my life as a tough bastard; I've already had my fill. Do whatever you want with me, beat me or kill me. If I so much as blink an eye, I'll take your damn family name."
"Alright, you're pretty bold!"
Sevrin gave him a thumbs up and said with a grin, "But I've always been a generous person, so I'll give you a chance. As long as you tell me everything about Xin Gein, I'll let you live."
"You want to know about that old fossil?"
Coeu was taken aback at first, then mocked, "Hah, don't dream. Even if I don't get along with him, I won't help an outsider. Eat shit!"
"Fine, fine. You refuse the only path to survival."
Sevrin pulled back his smile, his tone turning dark and cold. "Then I'll have to 'entertain' you in my own way."
As he heard these words, an unprovoked fear surged within Coeu's mind. It felt as though something horrific was about to happen to him.
"First, I must cripple your skills."
With that, Sevrin slowly raised his right hand in front of Coeu. He curled his fingers and formed a hand seal that Coeu knew very well, and his hand began to radiate a mysterious, eerie vibration.
"Phase-less Wind-Severance! How is that possible?!"
Coeu shouted in shock, "This is my Master's ultimate technique! Only he and I have mastered it in this world! Where did a thief like you learn it?!"
"Where else could I have learned it?"
Sevrin spoke with candid nonchalance, "From you, of course. I just learned it. Anyone who appears before me, I can master all their ultimate techniques with a single glance."
"Impossible!" Coeu roared, his eyes nearly splitting from rage. "What kind of nonsense are you spouting?! What kind of fairy tale is this!"
"The fact that I'm even telling you this much is already quite generous," Sevrin chuckled. "As for the rest, guess for yourself."
With that, he pressed a palm firmly against the other's shoulder.
BUZZ ——
In an instant, Coeu felt a cold, eerie power burrow into his body. Within moments, it permeated his skin, muscles, and bones, shattering and severing the rivers of internal force that circulated through those areas. His internal energy was reduced to disjointed, chaotic clumps of varying sizes, like disconnected pockets of stagnant coal.
A catastrophic chain reaction, akin to a falling row of dominoes, immediately spread throughout every part of Coeu's body.
In that heartbeat, Coeu was gravely crippled.
"Gah!"
He vomited a massive glob of nearly boiling blood. His eyes shot through with crimson, Coeu stared at Sevrin and shouted in disbelief:
"You... with one move, you completely sealed my martial foundation?! This... this is a special ability only possible at the highest realm of Phase-less Wind-Severance! Only my Master has reached such a stage! You... you say you just learned it... how is this possible?!"
His mind was in total disarray.
...
The sun had already sunk in the west, and the faint curtain of night lifted a massive moon into the center of the sky.
Under this dim moonlight, Nina Town was currently incredibly boisterous.
Almost all the townspeople had emerged from their homes to join the local militia in collecting and disposing of the thousands of corpses scattered throughout the streets and alleys, as well as cleaning the blood and filth from the ground and walls.
Of course, they weren't doing this voluntarily; it was the result of Sevrin pouring out a vast amount of gold and silver.
The reason he bothered with such a troublesome task was that he felt... while he had enjoyed the slaughter, it would be a bit too indecent to simply pat his backside and leave without a word, abandoning a pile of corpses here.
One had to understand that the weather in the Mount Qing region was hot and humid; if the bodies weren't handled promptly, a plague would surely break out. He wasn't afraid of it himself, but the people of Nina Town would be the ones to suffer.
Being someone who only cared for his own pleasure without considering the consequences for the common folk was not what Sevrin wanted.
But under normal circumstances, cleaning up this mess would have been an almost impossible task.
Setting aside how to scrub every trace of blood away, or where to transport the thousands of bodies, the most critical and difficult part of disposing of corpses was not something an ordinary person could easily manage.
Anyone who kills frequently probably knows this well, so there's no need for further explanation.
However, with Sevrin's help, the hardest part of the post slaughter cleanup became much easier.
Within the "Key Points of the Soutang Pou Clan's Poison Arts", many methods for rapid corpse dissolution and liquidation were recorded.
Using these methods and expending a vast quantity of medicinal herbs from every pharmacy in Nina Town, Sevrin took only half an hour to prepare ten large vats of corpse-dissolving fluid. This was enough to dissolve the nearly 3,000 bandit corpses completely, leaving not a drop of blood behind.
Thus, the residents of Nina Town only had to endure the pungent stench of blood and the terrifying sight of the bandits' deaths, transport the bodies to the dissolution vats, and push them in.
Yet, even with it being so simplified, the townspeople took several hours and worked until the sky began to brighten to finish the task. During that time, quite a few fainted from vomiting.
Still, there weren't many who complained, because the residents of Nina Town, having lived in the chaotic Mount Qing region since childhood, understood the reality perfectly.
If these heartless wolf bandits were still alive right now, there was no telling how many more heinous, conscienceless crimes they would have committed.
Robbery, indiscriminate murder, kidnapping and selling children, violating women... there was nothing they wouldn't do.
Quite a few of the townspeople had lost family members, relatives, or friends to these very bandits.
Therefore, for the townspeople, the cleanup was extremely cathartic, and they worked with great vigor.
Additionally, putting aside the bloody excitement caused by the piles of corpses, the townspeople were mostly filled with awe.
Awe that several thousand of these fierce and evil wolf bandits had been slaughtered to the last man by a single person.
And every single one of them had died a piteous death, enough to make anyone's heart tremble.
Consequently, the superstitious townspeople even began to feel... that Sevrin might not be human at all, but a God of Slaughter descended to earth.
Thus, amidst the whispers of the busy townspeople, Sevrin's identity underwent a transformation from man to deity through their words; he had become a World-Descending Demon Star.
As for this, Sevrin himself was naturally unaware.
As for the dirty work that followed, transporting all the used corpse-dissolving fluid to the wilderness outside the town to be disposed of, that would fall to the hard working militia.
Fortunately, Sevrin's generous expenditure of gold and silver served as a bounty, so the militiamen had little resentment and were even quite happy.
Not just the militia, but the residents of Nina Town who helped transport the bodies were also given substantial sums of money by Sevrin, as compensation for their psychological trauma.
In any case, Sevrin didn't care about money at all.
In short, under his gold fueled offensive, in just a single night, Nina Town, which had been covered in corpses, roughly returned to its former state.
Only the heavy scent of blood and the crimson stains hidden in various corners would require time to slowly fade.
By the time all these matters were concluded, dawn was approaching.
"It's about time."
On the high platform, Sevrin stood with his back to Coeu, who was stripped bare and bound to a stake. While organizing his blades, Sevrin said with a light smile, "You should be on your way now."
Hearing this, the ash faced Coeu merely moved his lips before closing them again, his eyes filled with dejection and hopelessness.
Upon returning to Nina Town, Sevrin had demonstrated to Coeu every single ultimate technique that Coeu possessed, and every one of them was practiced to the absolute peak.
Sevrin offered no further explanation for this, leaving Coeu to his own wild speculations.
And Coeu, influenced by Sevrin's shocking claim that he could master another's techniques with a single glance, and his terrifying display of reaching the peak of Phase-less Wind-Severance immediately after learning it, couldn't help but grow more terrified the more he pondered. He was so frightened he had lost all confidence even in his own Master.
"My son is dead, my whole family is dead, and I... I am about to die. And no one can avenge me, because my greatest backer... my Master, will also die. He will die at this Sevrin's hands."
At this thought, Coeu trembled violently with fear and despair.
Sevrin, of course, saw this.
But what he wanted was for Coeu to be afraid; that way, it would be easier to control the bleeding later.
Why control the bleeding?
Because Sevrin intended to execute the sin laden Coeu by Lingchi, the death by a thousand cuts, under the gaze of thousands of Nina Town residents.
"Begin."
Sevrin gestured with his chin to the militiamen waiting on the side.
"Yes, Great Hero!"
The militiamen nodded excitedly and immediately picked up a large bucket of ice cold acetic acid, pouring it over Coeu from head to toe.
SPLASH ——
As the bucket of cold vinegar drenched him, Coeu, already frail and tense, saw his veins constrict and his blood flow slow.
Sevrin followed closely behind. Under the gaze of thousands of eyes below the platform, he made the first cut into Coeu's chest, slicing off a piece of flesh no larger than half a palm.
"AAAHHH ~"
Coeu let out a weak cry of pain, which immediately triggered a wave of satisfied shouts and fearful gasps from the crowd below:
"Served him right!"
"Well cut!"
"It's finally your turn, Coeu! Heaven has eyes!"
"So terrifying, I can't look."
"Pah, if you're too scared to look, go home!"
"My daughter was killed by him!"
"I want to feed his flesh to the dogs!"
"The biggest animal of the Xin family! A beast that eats people alive!"
"Wuwu... Wife, you can finally close your eyes in peace now."
"Great Hero! We want to build a shrine for you!"
"Great Hero, may you live a hundred years!"
"Great Hero, please take my daughter as a slave!"
"..."
SWISH, SWISH, SWISH ——
Like a chef slicing the skin off a roast duck, Sevrin's blade moved like silken thread. In a short time, under the watchful eyes of the multitude, he had sliced off dozens of pieces of flesh from Coeu. His chest was now completely bared, revealing rows of pale ribs and the faintly visible heart, lungs, and internal organs beneath them.
Every time Coeu cried out or wailed in pain, the crowd below erupted in cheers and jubilation.
Even the scraps of flesh that fell from the platform sparked several scuffles as the crowd scrambled to grab them, as if it were a festive holiday.
But at that moment, Sevrin suddenly stopped the execution.