Han Ping was boiling inside. From the humiliation of that morning, when his own father had struck him in front of strangers, to Jin’s condescending and mocking attitude throughout the journey… every detail had piled up like embers beneath his skin. I may not be the most talented or the strongest of my generation… but I have my pride. And I won’t allow a mere bandit to trample on it.

  He wasted no time on grand speeches. While the bald man continued talking in a boastful tone, Han Ping activated his movement technique. His figure blurred for an instant, and the ground cracked under the force of his push-off. In the next second, he was already in front of the bandit, his sword tracing a clean and precise slash straight toward the man’s neck.

  The attack was swift, decisive.

  The bandit chief barely had time to react. His eyes widened in surprise, and for a brief instant the blade was dangerously close to his throat. However, at the last moment, he managed to raise his large curved saber and block the strike with a metallic clang that echoed through the trees.

  “Hey! Why are you attacking all of a sudden? Don’t you have any honor, brat?”

  No sooner had he finished complaining than his expression shifted into a mocking grin, as if the accusation were part of the show. With a sharp twist of his wrist, he deflected Han Ping’s sword and counterattacked with a horizontal slash, forcing him to step back half a pace.

  The leaves trembled above their heads as the blades began clashing again and again, sparks flying with every impact. Han Ping maintained the pressure with quick, technical strikes, while the bald man responded with brute strength and real combat experience.

  The exchange was intense, loud.

  And although pride drove every movement of the young man, the bandit’s crooked smile indicated that the fight would not be as simple as he had imagined.

  Han Ping began to feel confused as the clash dragged on. He had not expected the bandit to endure this long. We’re at the same cultivation level… my foundation should be more solid. My techniques should overwhelm him with ease. After all, he had cultivated with methods passed down by a respectable sect, with resources, guidance, and clear fundamentals. His opponent, in contrast, was nothing more than a roadside outlaw.

  Yet there he was.

  Blocking. Enduring. Counterattacking.

  Frustration began to seep into his movements. Failing to finish him with a single slash had wounded his confidence. His attacks became faster, more aggressive—but also less measured. The sword whistled through the air with an increasingly frantic rhythm.

  Amid the clash of steel, the bald man showed a nasty, mocking smile.

  “What’s wrong, brat? Can’t a sect disciple handle a mere bandit?”

  The tone was venomous, deliberately provoking.

  As soon as he finished speaking, something in his presence changed. His aura grew denser, heavier. His movements noticeably quickened. The force behind each blow increased, and his reflexes seemed sharper than before.

  The next clash sent vibrations up Han Ping’s arm to his shoulder.

  The bandit chief advanced with relentless pressure, combining speed and brute strength. Each strike forced Han Ping to step back half a pace. His boots sank into the earth as he tried to steady himself.

  What…?

  Alarm began to show clearly on his face. He could not understand how someone at the same cultivation level could push him back like that. His breathing grew uneven, and for the first time since he had drawn his sword, the confidence in his eyes wavered.

  A few meters away, atop the carriage, Jin watched in silence.

  While Han Ping and the bandit chief exchanged increasingly violent blows, the rest of the battlefield also erupted into chaos. The other five bandits charged at the Han family guards without hesitation. Though they were fewer in number, all of them were at the fourth or fifth level of Qi Condensation, clearly above the average of the fifteen guards escorting the caravan.

  Spears and swords clashed noisily. Shouts and curses filled the forest. The difference in cultivation quickly became evident: although the guards tried to coordinate, they were pushed back under the constant pressure of the bandits. One fell with a cut across his shoulder, another was knocked off his horse. The formation was beginning to break.

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  Without anyone noticing, Jin was no longer on the carriage.

  The first to realize was one of the bandits who had been keeping an eye on him from the corner of his vision. For a second, he looked away to block a spear—and when he searched again for the young man in elegant robes, the top of the carriage was empty.

  Huh? Where—?

  A chill ran down his spine.

  Meanwhile, Han Ping was clearly being overpowered. The bandit chief had taken control of the rhythm of the fight. Each clash made the young Han’s arms tremble, and every step back left him more destabilized. The bald man’s smile widened with every exchange.

  “Ha, ha, ha! Fight all you want! While you keep me entertained, my subordinates will finish off your guards and take the goods. This is already decided!”

  He said it as though the outcome were inevitable, as though fate itself were sealed in his favor.

  Han Ping gritted his teeth, feeling the pressure mounting from all sides.

  The bald man laughed with excessive pride and, in a particularly violent clash, managed to knock Han Ping’s sword aside and send him flying several meters back. The young man rolled across the ground before barely managing to steady himself. Seizing the advantage, the bandit chief turned his head to issue orders to his subordinates.

  The smile on his face froze.

  A few meters away, the young man in white was calmly dusting off his hands. At his feet lay his five subordinates, all severely battered—some unconscious, others unable to even stand. Their weapons were scattered across the ground, and the battle that moments ago had seemed to tilt in his favor had vanished without him noticing.

  The golden-eyed youth was immaculate.

  There wasn’t a single wrinkle on his robe, nor even a drop of sweat on him.

  It was as if he hadn’t defeated five fourth- and fifth-level cultivators… but five defenseless chickens.

  The bald man felt a hollow drop in his stomach.

  He watched as Jin finished brushing off his hands and lifted his gaze toward him. The brat offered him a light, almost friendly smile.

  “Mmmm… I don’t think it’s a good idea to get distracted during a fight.”

  The voice was soft… too soft.

  The bandit chief reacted purely on instinct. Forcing his mind to regain composure, he immediately activated a strange movement technique. His figure blurred and shifted sideways at high speed, moving away from the spot where he had stood a second earlier.

  At that exact moment, a small but sharp burst of Qi cut through the air and sliced across the place he had occupied. The energy left a deep mark in the ground and split a nearby tree trunk in two.

  It was Han Ping.

  Taking advantage of the moment of distraction, he had executed a long-distance cutting technique, intending to end the fight in a single blow—but he missed.

  The bandit reappeared several meters away, breathing slightly heavier, but unharmed.

  Now practically cornered, the bald man first showed obvious anger. His teeth ground together and his grip on his saber tightened… but then he began to laugh. It was not an uncontrolled laugh, but low and rough, laced with a confidence that felt forced.

  “Well, well… you sect brats are certainly different. I admit, you surprised me.” His gaze swept over Jin and then Han Ping with disdain. “But if you think you’ll defeat me just because there are two of you… you’re very mistaken.”

  He spoke as though the guards around them didn’t even exist, as though the battlefield had shrunk to only him and the two youths.

  “You forced me into this… tsk… how troublesome.”

  As he finished speaking, something changed in his body.

  His already muscular figure began to swell slightly. Veins bulged clearly beneath his skin, protruding like snakes slithering across his arms, neck, and chest. His bald head became covered in throbbing veins, and his height seemed to increase by a few centimeters as his musculature expanded unnaturally. The pressure of his aura grew heavier, more oppressive.

  The ground beneath his feet cracked.

  Jin narrowed his eyes slightly, and Han Ping’s widened in shock.

  The density of the bandit’s Qi had changed. It wasn’t simply stronger—it was more violent.

  The bald man rolled his neck from side to side, producing a dry crack, and smiled with excessive arrogance.

  “Well… I know who I’ll kill first.”

  His eyes locked directly onto Jin.

  In the next instant, he executed that strange movement technique again. His body blurred into a distorted streak, vanishing from where he stood, leaving behind only a ripple in the air and the sensation of pressure rushing forward with murderous intent.

  The moment the bandit disappeared using his strange movement technique, Jin’s body reacted before his mind did. Without even turning his head, he delivered a direct kick to Han Ping’s side, sending him flying to the right.

  At the same time, Jin dodged to the left.

  Han Ping barely had time to widen his eyes in surprise before being launched several meters away.

  An explosion thundered in the spot where he had stood a second earlier. The earth rose in a thick cloud of dust as dirt and stones were sent flying. When the smoke began to settle, a small crater marked the exact point of impact.

  The bald man stood in the middle of the crater, his body still swollen from the enhancement technique, his fist embedded in the ground.

  “Ha, ha, ha! Did you see that, brats? Witness my divine technique! Now I’ll kill you all and flee far from here!”

  His smile was savage, proud, utterly convinced of his own greatness.

  Han Ping, kneeling several meters away, breathed with difficulty. He looked at the crater and then at his own hands, visibly shaken. If not for… He swallowed. That attack would have killed him without giving him a chance to react.

  Jin also looked serious.

  He had not been able to follow the bald man’s movement. He had only felt the danger approaching like murderous pressure against his skin. And that attack power… it was absurd for someone at the sixth level of Qi Condensation.

  The dust fully settled.

  Jin looked at the crater, then at the vein-bulging bandit, and finally said with complete nonchalance:

  “Divine technique… my ass.”