"You beast..."
"Hahaha~ I started killing when I was six. At twelve, I f*cked my first woman to death. At fourteen, I burned those plebeian students who kept me from sleeping, and right in front of the principal, I r*vaged his wife and daughter, is that beastly enough?"
"But my dad told me..."
"'Son, it's fine. You can kill whoever you want, f*ck whoever you want, because you are the son of Minister Onest. There is no law in this empire that can judge you!'"
Syura sneered, "A bunch of lowlifes, born to serve geniuses like me. Anyone who makes me unhappy deserves to be tortured and killed by me!"
"So satisfying~"
"Such domineering words~"
"Tell you what, I'll play a game with you. If you win, I'll let you all go. If you lose..."
Syura glanced at the curtain and said confidently, "I bet his noodles definitely have a lot of cilantro in them."
"Th-That's not fair!" The cousin held back her tears. "Even if there's just one leaf, you'll say it's 'a lot'!"
"Yeah, it's unfair. Talking about fairness with me, are you even worthy?"
"Hahaha!"
The others laughed too, as if anticipating something.
The agonizing seconds ticked by. Under the cousin's fearful gaze, the shop owner placed a large steaming bowl of soup noodles on the table.
"Here, braised beef noodles!"
"Hmph~"
Syura and his crew confidently looked into the bowl, then their expressions froze in unison.
There wasn't a single leaf of cilantro in the bowl. Instead, out of kindness, the owner had added plenty of braised beef. It looked incredibly appetizing and smelled delicious.
"Whew..." The cousin let out a long breath, feeling as if she had narrowly escaped death.
His subordinates silently looked at Syura. The tanned young man paused, then suddenly threw his head back with a maniacal laugh, "I don't eat beef!"
With that, a gleaming dagger thrust toward the shop owner's throat.
Slash!
A torrent of blood gushed out, crimson flooding Syura's vision.
"Hahaha... huh?"
'Why... is the shop owner still standing?'
'No... Why does it hurt so much!'
Thud!
A severed hand still gripping the dagger fell into the steaming pot of soup, sending up a cloud of vapor. The tanned youth's eyes widened in disbelief, "My, it's my hand! You beast, ahhhhh!!!"
One of the three mysterious cloaked figures at another table had, unnoticed, arrived beside the shop owner and the cousin. Now, he slowly lowered a blood-stained blade.
"I hate people who waste food the most. How dare you!"
Iori's tone was full of regret, "Take this bowl of pig trotter noodles out to feed the dogs."
The sudden turn of events happened in the blink of an eye. The previously sneering Syura was now clutching his forearm, howling in agony. A massive amount of blood stained the entire table red, splattering onto the faces of the other three.
"Bastard!"
The sinister-looking young man kicked over the table. The scalding hot pot of soup spilled out. The shop owner and cousin, frozen in fear, couldn't dodge in time and were about to be splashed. Iori reached out, yanked them back, pulling them out of harm's way.
Before Iori could turn around, a gust of wind suddenly swept. A powerful spinning kick struck Iori squarely in the chest, the immense force sending him flying backward, his feet leaving the ground.
The attacker, Syura, had no time to rejoice before his ankle was abruptly seized in that momentary gap by Iori, who simultaneously destroyed his balance.
Thump!
Using the momentum as a buffer, Iori planted his feet firmly on the ground in a bow stance. His well-honed martial arts were displayed to perfection in that instant.
His fingers clamped down like talons, refusing to let go. The pulse of power centered at his waist, his limbs and torso moving as one unified whole, executing the move in a single breath.
Whoosh~ Bang!
The athletic Syura was flung through the air like a child, arcing in a half-circle like a ragged sack before crashing heavily into the solid wall, leaving a web of fine cracks.
At the same time, Iori instinctively leaned backward. His flexible waist muscles contracted, his upper torso nearly parallel to the ground. A blade of vacuum, invisible to the naked eye, sliced past right before his eyes, cleanly cutting through a long table three meters away.
"He dodged it?!" The sinister young man who launched the attack exclaimed in surprise.
"Gah!"
Syura fell to the floor. Already missing a hand, his injuries were now even more severe. He felt that not only his bones, but likely his internal organs were damaged as well.
Having never suffered such a loss in his life, Syura was grinding his teeth in fury. Believing his own life was still secure, he glanced around the battlefield and realized that besides the sinister young man, his other two subordinates were not joining the fight.
"Izou! What are you doing? Hurry up and cut this bastard down with Enshin!"
Syura was furious. That woman, Cosmina's Imperial Arm was for area attacks, indeed unsuitable for this kind of melee.
But Izou was a top-tier expert he had recruited from his travels across the land. Syura had lost count of how many murder cases he had smoothed over for him. And now he wouldn't exert himself?
"Lord Syura, I am already assisting."
To his surprise, Izou looked completely unperturbed. The black-haired, black-eyed samurai, his eyes carrying a murderous demonic glint, held his sword hilt at the ready. His target, however, was not Iori, but the two people at another table.
Though invisible to the eye, their auras were locked onto each other. Victory or defeat hung on a split second. If Izou acted recklessly, he would lose the initiative, and the same was true for the other side.
The beautiful Cosmina was the most anxious. She knew Izou's strength well, and someone who could make him wary was undoubtedly a swordsman of a similar level.
Her close combat abilities were average. If she was ambushed at such close range... Izou might manage, but she probably couldn't hold out. So she remained motionless, waiting for Izou to strike first and draw the enemy's attention so she could escape.
"There are others?"
Syura then remembered that the bastard who cut off his hand had companions... Now it seemed they were definitely not ordinary passersby or spies from a different tribe.
'To dispatch so many experts simultaneously, they must be assassins from the Revolutionary Army!'
In this momentary distraction, the sinister young man Enshin had been pushed to the brink by Iori in just a few exchanges and was about to be overwhelmed. At that moment, Syura's peripheral vision caught the shop owner and cousin trembling in the corner.
His inherently cruel nature instantly sparked an idea. He was about to get up when an excruciating pain shot through his right foot, that earlier grab, Iori had crushed his ankle.
'What terrifying finger strength! Even the finger-training monks of the Royal Fist Temple probably weren't much better!'
Syura was even more alarmed. Gnashing his teeth, he forced himself to stand...
"Everyone, stop!"
Syura pressed his severed hand against the cousin's neck, his intact left hand pointing at Iori, "You want to save these two, right? If you don't stop now, I'll snap her neck immediately!"
"Help me~" The cousin let out a shrill, miserable scream.
"Wha..."
Iori, who was exchanging blows with Enshin, abruptly halted, a look of grief and indignation on his face, "Despicable villain!"
"Ha!"
Syura was overjoyed, thinking here was another fool brainwashed by the Revolutionary Army's propaganda, who actually cared about the lives of these lowlifes.
'Good. Since you have weaknesses and vulnerabilities, you're destined to be controlled. Just wait and see how I deal with you later!'
'This woman you want to save, I'll have my way with her right in front of you!'
And Enshin, who had been barely holding on, also showed a darkly pleased expression at this sight.
Clang!
A flash of sword light. The sinister young man's head separated from his body. Drops of blood sprayed out, reflecting Iori's cold, clear eyes.
"En... you..."
Ding!
Syura felt a sharp pain at the back of his neck. His vision blurred abruptly, and then his grip loosened. The wailing cousin somehow broke free from his grasp.
"What's going on..."
A tingling numbness spread from the back of his neck. Syura was fully conscious, but his body wouldn't obey him, like he was drunk, falling backward.
'No! This situation is very bad!'
Though Syura was scum, he was scum with combat experience. He knew very well he had been poisoned.
Injured and poisoned, in this condition, he couldn't tough it out. He had to escape.
So he instinctively reached for a hidden pocket on his person... and froze.
"Not there?"
He then frantically felt around other places, growing more panicked with each passing moment.
"Gone? Gone? How is it gone?!"
His Imperial Arm, Cross Tail, Shambhala, was missing.
"Could it have been during the fight just now... Impossible!"
Without his greatest trump card, Syura panicked. Even when his hand was cut off earlier, he was only angry, not as frantic as he was now.
Because Shambhala was a rare spatial-type Imperial Arm. With it in hand, Syura could advance or retreat freely. No matter how desperate the situation, he could retreat calmly.
It was precisely because of this confidence that Syura had always considered himself extraordinary, never feeling fear even towards the legendary Empire's Great General or the strongest Imperial Arm users.
Although he had just arrived here and hadn't had time to set markers, making it difficult to use directly in combat, at least escaping was still possible.
But now it was gone.
Severely injured, Syura suddenly felt a deadly crisis.
"This is... you? You b*tch!"
Syura looked up hatefully. That timid, weak cousin had long shed her act, now wearing an expression of cold indifference, looking down at him with contempt as if he were vermin.
On the other side, the "cousin" also shed his honest, simple disguise, picking up a hammer hidden behind the counter and walking over.
"You, who look down on women, didn't expect to ultimately be brought down by a woman, did you?"
Poof~
A puff of smoke dispersed. The plainly dressed village girl transformed into a stylish, beautiful young woman with long, light crimson hair.
She flipped her hand over, and as if by magic, a flat box engraved with a yin-yang fish pattern appeared in her palm.
It was Syura's Imperial Arm.
"No-Face was right. You really are the type who 'gets carried away when complacent, lets your guard down, and then gets killed by a counterattack', all bark and no bite."
"You dare steal my things, you bitch! I'll sell you to the military camp as a breeding sow!"
"Still saying that? Such a spoiled young master... So many innocent people, because of scum like you..."
By then, the shop owner had already walked to Syura's side and raised the hammer.
"Wait! What are you doing?! Do you know who I am? My father is the Chief Minist, Ugh, ahhhh!!!"
Thud!
The hammer mercilessly smashed his right knee.
"Although our superiors said to take him alive, leaving only his mouth should be fine, right? After all, it would be terrible if he escaped."
"How could someone as noble as me be... by you lowlifes in a place like this, Ahhhhhh yah!!!"
Thud!
This time, it was the fingers of his left hand.
"St-stop! I'll cooperate with you! Just stop there!"
Syura swallowed hard, "Gulp, can we make peace?"
"At this moment, you must be joking, right?"
The shop owner swung the hammer again.
"Guaaah!!!"
"Serves you right~ scumbag!"