Chapter Ninety: Suppressing Liu Hong

"Yes, it was only a tiny trap. Who knew he was too stupid to see it?"

Lin Fan stretched lazily. As he spoke, his figure flickered and appeared before Liu Hong, his fist already crashing forward.

"That way, I can crush you outright and not have to worry about any of you escaping!"

With a thunderous boom, Liu Hong met Lin Fan’s powerful blow with a fist of his own, knowing full well that today’s matter had become serious.

With Lin Fan’s strength, if he truly intended to flee, he might not be able to catch him.

At his age, with such talent, such ferocity, and such depth of mind, if he really made it to the Heavenly Tome Academy, he would surely be valued there.

By then, with the talent he had already shown, his cultivation would surely advance by leaps and bounds, perhaps even soaring upward like a carp leaping from the water and transforming into a dragon.

When that time came, the Liu Clan, a behemoth in Clear Snow Commandery, would be nothing more than a shrimp in Lin Fan’s eyes, something he could slap to death whenever he pleased.

So today, no matter what, he had to use every trump card he possessed to kill Lin Fan.

Now that Lin Fan had come at him, how could he not also strike at Lin Fan?

Although Lin Fan had slain Greedy Wolf, proving that he was deeply scheming and immensely strong, it was precisely because of that that Liu Hong understood even more clearly: Lin Fan did not have the strength to face both him and Greedy Wolf at once.

Otherwise, he would not have deliberately fallen into the trap and allowed Greedy Wolf the chance to launch a sneak attack, using that opening to eliminate Greedy Wolf.

"If you want to suppress me, I’m afraid the one who dies will be you!"

At that thought, the tension in Liu Hong’s heart eased a little. He then said darkly to Lin Fan, though his movements did not slow. After their first exchange, his knee shot upward toward Lin Fan’s chest.

"Heh."

Lin Fan did not answer. With only a faint laugh, he suddenly drove his elbow downward, smashing it into the knee that came charging in with brutal force.

Then he sprang upward again, his fist rising straight into the air. Fist-light scattered in all directions, true energy surged, and he slammed a domineering punch toward Liu Hong’s jaw. Liu Hong tilted his head aside, while his left hand’s index finger, black as ink, stabbed straight for Lin Fan’s throat.

In that instant, though the two exchanged only a few words, the danger and slaughter between them had already shifted countless times. They attacked and countered with rapid ferocity, every move perilous.

Crack, snap, boom, and bang rang out without end.

The ground was stamped with one footprint after another. In their close-quarters struggle, a moment’s carelessness meant blood splattering into the air.

Yet in this hand-to-hand combat, Lin Fan’s attacks were far more forceful, swifter, and overwhelmingly savage.

Liu Hong’s strikes were tricky and vicious, but against Lin Fan, a man who had passed through countless life-and-death battles, his experience in combat was truly weak.

Since the fight began, they had seemed evenly matched on the surface, but in truth Lin Fan had only a few wounds, and all of them were away from vital points. Though blood flew everywhere, they were only flesh wounds.

As for Liu Hong, he too had avoided Lin Fan’s attacks, but the blows he escaped were often the baited killing moves, while the ones he could not avoid were the true death strikes.

Thus, at that moment, Liu Hong’s wounds were all extremely serious: some cut open by Lin Fan’s palm edges, some pierced through by finger techniques, blood streaming down him in rivers.

Liu Hong’s face was pale and dark, and his eyes revealed deep caution. He had never expected that he would be unable to outfight Lin Fan in close combat.

Not even pulling away and using other martial arts was possible.

He was bound tightly by Lin Fan, as if an invisible shackle had tied them together.

The two could only slaughter each other at extremely close range.

He did not know that in Lin Fan’s previous life there had been a martial art called the Eighteen Slips of Clinging Garments, a method of combat designed for intimate, short-range killing.

In this life, because of the laws of heaven and earth, many of Lin Fan’s cultivation arts had to be modified, and many formidable battle techniques could no longer be used at all.

Even techniques like Wind and Thunder Force, which he could still deploy, were considered by Lin Fan to be rather low-level methods of combat.

But that did not stop Lin Fan from knowing certain close-range methods of slaughter that were extremely effective. The Eighteen Slips of Clinging Garments was precisely the kind that combined strikes with entanglement, pressuring and pulling in one flowing motion.

In short, he would never let you fully open the distance, never let you free your hands and feet to wage an expansive battle.

This was a fight where life and death were decided within inches, a battle that took lives within a single span of space.

Though not as brutal as a wide-open clash, it was no less dangerous. A slight mistake, and death would still come.

Boom!

At last, Liu Hong felt this was no solution. If this fight continued, he would eventually be slain by Lin Fan. So he endured a punch that could seriously injure him, borrowed the force, and explosively retreated several meters.

"Dragon-Startling Fist!"

Blood trickled from the corner of Liu Hong’s mouth. Lin Fan’s ferocious punch had already left him with considerable injuries. Fortunately, he had managed to create some distance. With a furious shout, he swung both fists.

Overbearing true energy poured out through his fists, and a semi-transparent black dragon appeared along the trail of his fist seals, surging toward Lin Fan in a devastating strike.

At the sight, Lin Fan smiled. He leaped forward with his feet stamping the earth, and the ground beneath him instantly cracked open, the force in his soles far too great.

The reason he had tangled with Liu Hong was the same as Liu Hong’s own fear of him escaping. Lin Fan also feared Liu Hong fleeing. He certainly could have chased him down, but he disliked wasting time and effort.

Through the struggle, he had already wounded Liu Hong, and to widen the distance Liu Hong had taken one of Lin Fan’s heavy punches, worsening his bodily injuries.

Even now, as the true martial arts unfolded, Lin Fan was utterly unafraid.

At the same time, he had gained a comprehensive understanding of his own combat power, and no longer hesitated.

A radiant glow burst from Lin Fan’s body as he leaped high into the air, landing directly above the dragon’s head. Wind and thunder gathered beneath his feet, lightning cracked across his body, and all kinds of electric arcs resonated as his blood and qi surged violently.

In that instant, he activated Wind and Thunder Force while driving the blood energy through his body to awaken the power of his bloodline.

He was going all out to suppress and kill Liu Hong.

Crackling thunder erupted as Lin Fan’s body descended. His fist struck like a tiger, hammering fiercely into the dragon’s head. With a loud blast, the dragon exploded apart, true energy scattering wildly and blowing crater after crater into the ground.

Borrowing the force, Lin Fan plunged downward. Blood-fire roared around him like divine flame, and with both hands clasped into a single fist, he smashed toward Liu Hong’s head.

The void trembled, vital energy burst apart, and the air churned like a sea of clouds, hissing endlessly.

This was the Tiger Devouring Fist, a martial art he had once taught to Ou Hu and, in doing so, learned himself. Though plain and direct, it was ferociously aggressive.

Now that his vital energy was weak but his body was immensely strong, it was perfectly suited to him.

Of course, in Lin Fan’s hands it was even more terrifying. His fist became a tiger, as though a savage beast had descended upon the world, flames of ferocity billowing to the heavens.

Roar!

A true tiger’s howl seemed to ring out, and a murderous aura stabbed straight into Liu Hong’s heart. A strange and oppressive intent enveloped him. Liu Hong shuddered, and before his eyes countless visions blossomed: corpses strewn across the land, rivers of blood flowing, innumerable white bones stacked into towering mountains.

Upon that mountain stood a white fierce tiger, roaring down at him, one enormous claw already slashing toward him.

"This isn’t real!"

Liu Hong suddenly bit his tongue, trying to wake himself from the illusion, but found it useless. With a hard look, he drew a short blade from nowhere, sharp beyond measure. Pouring all his vital energy into it, he slashed toward the tiger’s claw.

Clang!

At that instant, the sound of metal striking metal rang through the battlefield. Vital energy and true energy swept outward; countless trees snapped, and the earth was cut into shattered fragments.

The illusion vanished, and Liu Hong’s short blade had been severed on the edge of the Thousand Mounds of Snow Saber.

Crack.

Liu Hong’s head drooped. His body swayed, then with a thud he collapsed to the ground, seven orifices bleeding as he died.

Lin Fan landed, glanced at Liu Hong’s skull, which he had smashed apart with a single punch, and smiled faintly. Back when his body had not even reached the Meridian-Opening Realm, he had been able to battle Zhang Lao Qi for several rounds.

Though in the end he had used a spiritual attack to finish Zhang Lao Qi, that in no way diminished his own combat power.

Now that his body had reached the Meridian-Opening Realm, with his battle experience, he could kill Liu Hong of the same rank without difficulty.

The reason he had not been able to face Greedy Wolf and Liu Hong at the same time was not, as Liu Hong had thought, because he truly could not face two opponents at once.

Even if Lin Fan had to confront both of them simultaneously, he would still have been fearless.

What he feared was that during the fight one of them might flee, while he became entangled by the other. After killing one, he would then have to give chase to the remaining one.

That back-and-forth pursuit would waste a great deal of time, and if the chase dragged on for days, it might even delay his registration at the Heavenly Tome Academy.

So he had used the scheme against Greedy Wolf and killed him first. After that, in a one-on-one fight, killing Liu Hong was truly no difficulty at all.

Thus, incidentally, he also tested his current combat strength.

At the same time, by entangling Liu Hong, he kept him from escaping.

Once again, Lin Fan gained a new understanding of his own strength. His body had reached the Meridian-Opening Realm, and on that alone, with his battle experience, no one in the early stage of Meridian-Opening Realm could match him.

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