“Wuheheha!” That mocking ugh echoed from all directions of the dense fog like a hyena let loose in a tomb. The hunter clearly did not take

  “Wuheheha!”

  That mocking ugh echoed from all directions of the dense fog like a hyena let loose in a tomb.

  The hunter clearly did not take his prey’s words seriously.

  “You got plenty more? Heh! Stop pretending. We’re all clear in our hearts how much salt you really got in that sorry little tricks bag of yours! You can stop me once, you can stop me twice, but what about—“

  Fwoosh! Mid-speech, the curtain of fog tore apart. Something was coming. Fast!

  A split second was all it took for Bubai to spin around—Cang!

  Screee—Sparks bloomed like angry fireflies!

  But the dual knives crossed in an X just at the right time to catch the curved dagger thrusting for his throat!

  Still, the heavy force from the thrust shoved Bubai back a full three paces before his boots finally gripped the ground!

  Once Bubai rooted himself, his muscles coiled like spring-loaded traps and he pushed back hard against the steely pointed tip just inches away from his neck.

  The locked bdes quivered in pce and fierce gres tried to melt through the other’s defenses.

  "Hehe, oh, what a persistent rat…" Wu Dawei’s twisted face did not look happy at all.

  “But that’s it. Struggle. Keep struggling. But tell me… how long can you really keep this up?”

  Bubai answered with a smile of his own—razor-thin, wolfish. “Sah... who knows. But at least it is long enough to make you ask that question. And that is... a win in my—”

  His words didn’t even finished when—Pew!

  A silver needle fired out from his mouth at the other’s left eye!

  Wu Dawei was caught off guard, but his reaction wasn’t slow at all.

  A slight tilt of his head let the needle whistle past his cheek and a shove broke apart their deadlock.

  “Cheeky rat—!” Wu Dawei’s eyes fshed with scorn and he leapt back, letting himself get swallowed by the swirling fog once again.

  That cold, disorienting voice of his then slithered into Bubai’s ears once more.

  “I see you’ve still hid a dirty trick or two like those rotten vermin at the bottom…”

  “But don’t mistake me for those newborn calves who only lived a few decades. I’ve seen more blood than you alley spit. Cheap tricks like these are useless.”

  Bubai spat out the hidden blowpipe sponsored by the forbidden pill desperado.

  Well, that’s that. He didn’t expect it to work.

  Even he himself didn’t fall for this level of sneak attack, let alone these elite demonic cultivators who’d danced with death more times than he could count.

  But hey… still worth a shot.

  It didn’t matter if it hits or not.

  In battles, not every move has to hit to matter. A heartbeat of reaction was a heartbeat stolen.

  So long as there’s a reaction, it counts as effective. Speaking of effectiveness...

  Bubai’s eyes then dropped to his pair of nicked and dented knives.

  He used two to fend off one.

  This was really making a loss, especially since his opponent was wasting basically nada resource in exchange!

  Dear Merlin, it hurts just thinking about his net loss! Painfully so.

  Then there was a fact: resources weren’t unlimited.

  If he goes on like this, he’ll just get slowly wheedled down until... he has to fight bare-handed!

  But Bubai wasn’t all that worried.

  Why? Because all of this was in line with his act!

  A Qi Refiner exchanging resources to stall a Foundation Builder—that looked perfectly normal on paper.

  Bubai was simply acting out this textbook example. Why?

  Remember: This was never a simple life-or-death struggle. This was a performance on stage!

  Strategy was a must.

  Of course, it might sound stupid to waste resources like this, especially when there are better options.

  But it wasn’t all for nothing.

  He wasn’t just fighting blindly. Every exchange was a probe.

  And now, after a few bouts, he was sure: this was no hopeless battle. He could fight this.

  Sure, the raw stats of an elite Foundation Builder were stacked sky-high—the longer they live, the more Qi, more speed, more everything.

  But just his monstrous cheat-of-a-physique alone puts him on the same level, if not higher.

  As for the finer things—timing, technique, rhythm—

  Well… this guy was fast, sure, and his combat tactics were quite a headache.

  But to be honest, when it came to raw attack power, this water boy 2.0 can’t even hold a candle to the sword of that Leng Meng goddess doll he bagged.

  That sword had real bite. Compared to that? This was nothing.

  Of course, that wasn’t to say this Wu Dawei was any less dangerous. Far from it.

  Danger didn’t always scream in your face. Sometimes it whispered from the unseen.

  This Wu Dawei… he wasn’t a true blue assassin through and through, but he wasn’t much worse.

  Lurking, poking, only striking when a kill was in his sights.

  A one-shot, one-kill artist who treated head-on confrontation like a disease.

  Even worse news? He was the annoying type that capitalizes on environmental advantages.

  This field spell of fog… Bubai can bet his stinking boots that it wasn’t simply for impairing his vision to cover up for sneak attacks.

  During his own debut battle, he used a simir smoke tactic.

  Now that the wheels have turned on him, he knows it’ll be strange if there’s nothing fishy going on out there!

  That’s why Bubai kept hugging the wall instead of going on a wild goose chase.

  Passive? Definitely. But safe.

  After all, the wall is his friend!

  The best part? Staying passive like this works in his favor.

  Because time… was not his enemy. It wasn’t him that was sweating the clock, but the enemy!

  Bubai hadn’t forgotten the time limit stamped into this duel like an invisible seal: two hours.

  That was the window for the challenger.

  Once the time was up, it would all end in a draw.

  And by the sacred cuses of the sect’s w, a draw meant freedom—no mandatory rematches, no second death grudge challenge from the same person for the rest of the year!

  That’s why Bubai didn’t mind pying the defensive underdog in this game.

  Tick-tock. The longer he stayed passive, the better.

  Because unlike this Wu Dawei, Bubai wasn’t in a rush.

  If this avenger really wanted vengeance for his brother, sooner or ter, he had to go hard or go home!

  And once the enemy gets impatient… that would be his chance.

  In the meantime? Keep running, keep the rhythm going.

  Looking at the knives that looked like the were living on borrowed time and might get scrapped mid-fight, Bubai took the initiative to swap one of them out.

  Just when his hand reached into his storage pouch, a glint of silver fshed!

  An opening! How can the enemy let that chance go?!

  But Bubai’s other knife was ready!

  Ding! Ting! Tink! Needles got spped away, but this time, it was followed by another all-out strike from the killer!

  With only a single hand avaible, Bubai seemed to be wide open to the death blow!

  But right when the blood-hungry dagger arced in, the hand inside the pouch whipped back out—Puff!

  A half-full burp sack met the dagger head-on!

  The sack obviously did little to stop the dagger and got torn apart, only for a cloud of red to explode out all over!

  Itching balm!

  Low-tier, but viciously effective. Even foundation builders can’t resist this skin irritant!

  Yet the enemy was ruthless! The dagger still shot forward!

  Unfortunately, that sack bought just enough time for a knife to come around!

  Deeengg! Knife parried the dagger—

  Screeee—but the poor thing had reached its limit.

  With a scream of metal... it snapped down the center—craack!

  The sharp tip went flying. Half-a-bde left its owner wide open, and the dagger shrieked toward its final destination!

  But just before it could sign its bloody contract, Bubai’s free hand shot out to cuff the wrist!

  Attack stopped! Enemy locked!

  His knee then drove up to deal a low-blow to the sacred jewels, but the other’s leg snapped up to block—Bam!

  The seams of his trousers tore apart at the point of impact, but Bubai can care less about that because—

  The enemy’s mouth already snapped open to spew out a net of foul-smelling, bck water!

  That look, that feel!

  The spell got reshaped into a net, but it’s undoubtedly the same killer used by his younger brother: Water Style: Deadman Mist!

  But this time, Bubai had prepared a countermeasure for these mouth traps!

  The knife-wielding hand that got freed up earlier already went a step ahead to sp his storage pouch...

  And from the mouth of the pouch, a human body got spat out, growing into full size right in between the duo in an instant!

  Fang Bubai Style: Human Body Shield!

  The deadman mist net barely got its time to shine before it spttered all over the stocky corpse, sizzling and melting its dark-spotted skin almost instantly!

  Seeing the stiff, wide-eyed corpse about to give himself an up-close-and-personal kiss, Wu Dawei grimaced and was forced to give up the attack to shove aside the human wall.

  But by the time the wall was gone, so was his prey!

  Above! Wu Dawei’s eyes darted up.

  There, vaulting upside-down over his shoulder, was his prey-turned-hunter now plunging a dagger straight down at his own eye!

  “Muda!” Wu Dawei’s palm shot up like a dragon’s cw warding off the sun!

  Thoom! Qi surged from the palm like an invisible force-field, freezing the pointed tip millimeters away from the skin and even showed signs of rebounding it back!

  This attack failed! But... the chain didn’t end!

  In a split second, a skyward-pointing foot hooked a falling kunai that had been thrown up into the air earlier, sending it bulleting straight down at the target dummy now locked in pce!

  Whssht!

  Wu Dawei’s pupils shrank. Even though his spiritual sense noticed that stray dart earlier, he really didn’t see this sort of unorthodox attack coming! And so fast too!

  Even so, a Foundation Builders’s reflexes was no joke.

  At the st possible moment, he managed to tilt out of the way, but the side of his neck still got nicked by the kunai, leaving a thin red line…

  For a heartbeat, it seemed all was well.

  But the next heartbeat, Wu Dawei immediately felt the chilling numbness spreading from that spot.

  Poison!

  But that’s normal for killers like them.

  What wasn’t normal was how strong and fast it was at eroding his neck! Even his Qi can’t suppress it!

  What kind of back-alley poison is this?!

  Wu Dawei’s mind raced.

  He was no stranger to toxins—venoms that melt bones, powders that steal breath, oils that make the soul flicker like a dying candle—but this one?

  It felt more like something that overdrafted the vitality of any affected area, effectively turning it into a dry husk!

  Sure, Foundation Builders could breathe through their pores and could even hold their breaths for duration far beyond mortals, but that doesn’t mean they don’t need to breathe!

  Moreover, if his throat gets destroyed by this unknown poison, he’ll have trouble swallowing even a single holy seed of salvation.

  Even if the holy seed takes effect, if the poison damage spreads too much, it will no longer be a small matter that can be solved by a cheap seed of pleasure or two!

  So Wu Dawei immediately had the heart to retreat.

  Use the fog as cover and find a spot to solve the poison by the books.

  Suppression and forcing out poison was a means any experienced cultivator had under their belt.

  His mind was set. Do it!

  The dragon’s cw holding back the dagger spun sideways.

  The airborne man was diverted off-course and Wu Dawei broke away from the confrontation to dive back into the fog.

  Huh? Bubai nded and blinked. He’s running?

  Seeing the man’s back almost vanishing into the fog, Bubai only hesitated for a heartbeat before sprinting after the man.

  This time he chose to engage!

  It’s rare to actually hand a critical hit like this. The longer that poison stays, the more effective!

  Best to take advantage of this chance to beat the dog while he’s down!

  And if Lady Luck smiles at him... who says he can’t end the game early?

  Ahead, sensing the prey chasing after his tail, Wu Dawei sneered and his fingers formed an activation seal.

  “Lowlife, you’re right where I want you to be—Katsu!”

  And in that instant, every hair on Bubai’s neck rose. His Bubai tingle says danger!

  That sixth sense redirected his attention to his foot, where he noticed the igniting talismans pasted on the half-fog-shrouded ground!

  His pupils shrank when he recognized that all-too-familiar rune symbol on that talisman seal.

  “Shi—!” BOOOOM!