Chapter 36: Lin Kuang Today

Lin Kuang’s face twisted hideously, as if pierced in the soft rib. A black mist immediately spread out, slowly veiling that once-handsome visage until the world before his eyes dissolved into pure nothingness.

The red sword flipped, and a terrifying killing aura radiated outward. The dust on the ground began to drift and condense in the air, as though it had taken on substance. From afar, the air surrounding the black-clothed figure shimmered blood-red.

“Hmph!” Lin Kuang gave a cold snort. He swung his sword forward, his gaze fixed on the woman lying on the ground—Mei Yi.

Sword light flashed. In the span of a single heartbeat, a devastating sword qi struck straight into her body. The immense force carved a deep, ghastly imprint into the earth. Mei Yi had been cleaved cleanly in two.

“Mei Yi!” Ru Xi cried out in shock. Only moments earlier she had been warned to remain vigilant; now she watched the woman she had tried to protect torn apart.

Mo Shan drew in a sharp, cold breath. Lin Kuang’s strength was terrifyingly overwhelming—fast beyond the reach of human eyes.

“Don’t rush. There’s you too!”

Mo Shan’s pupils contracted violently, as if witnessing something far more horrifying. The pleasant voice that had once soothed him now rang like a death omen.

Lin Kuang slowly raised his sword, his eyes fixed on the man with the predatory gaze of a beast.

“You all. That old fox Lin Feng was easily tricked by me, and now even a little girl slipped through my fingers.”

The words had barely left his lips when a sword qi shot forth, aimed straight at Mo Shan’s face.

The voice seemed to coil around him like a death summons. Before he could react, the sword qi came for his forehead.

A vivid image of Mei Yi flashed through Mo Shan’s mind. His heart lurched. Instinctively he tried to back away, but the sword light arrived in an instant.

He swallowed hard and forced his breath to steady. His body moved, yet the strike still grazed him. Sword light flashed again, blinding him and severing his left shoulder clean off. The emptiness in his shoulder was immediate. He turned his head and the world spun. His body staggered back several steps.

The sword qi had hacked through his left arm. By the time his nerves registered the pain, it was already too late.

If he had been even a fraction slower, the blade would have taken his arm instead of leaving it behind.

Mo Shan’s eyes locked on the severed limb. The sword had shattered the bone at his shoulder; blood poured out in a steady crimson stream, soaking his clothes. He instinctively pressed his right hand over the wound.

A faint, soothing current seemed to flow through the injury, slowing the bleeding. Yet the blood he had already lost had drained his strength. His face turned deathly pale, and the weakness that had haunted him during his last faint spell was now far worse.

The contrast was unmistakable. Lin Kuang had been holding back his true power all along.

From the man’s words, this was no random killing. He had planned every death in the town.

Mo Shan had spoken only a few quiet sentences and had already been marked for death. He had arrived in this place only days ago, yet he had been swept into disaster without warning. For what purpose?

If strength alone decided who lived and who died, then he was nothing but fish on a cutting board, ready to be carved at will.

Until this moment he had never truly understood the meaning of rage. He stared at the severed arm lying on the ground and felt his composure crack. A storm of fury churned inside his chest.

“Ah—!!!”

His eyes turned scarlet. He threw his head back and let out a roar that shook the heavens. His gaze locked onto Lin Kuang.

The blood qi around Lin Kuang faded completely, the black mist receding to reveal once more that strikingly handsome face. In Mo Shan’s eyes, even the other side of that beauty now looked grotesquely ugly.

“Hahaha! I love people like you—those who know the end is certain yet still fight with everything they have!” Lin Kuang laughed mockingly to the sky. “An ant is an ant. In the face of overwhelming power, resistance is meaningless.”

The words ignited something in Mo Shan. His grip on the sword tightened until his knuckles ached. His arm trembled. Black spots spread across his eyes until they were completely black.

More and more dark blemishes crawled over the blade. His entire demeanor shifted—from approachable and sunny to cold and distant, a stranger to be avoided.

His face, once twisted with fury, now remained expressionless. If it were not for the aura rolling off his body, even Ru Xi might have believed he cared nothing for the arm he had lost.

The entire sequence—from Mei Yi’s death to Mo Shan’s severed arm—had taken less than the blink of an eye.

Memories of Mei Yi’s death more than ten years ago, of her father’s disappearance, and of Mo Shan’s own arm being hacked away in an instant overwhelmed him. Hot anger surged through his veins. The meridians that had been steady under that soothing current now began to churn violently.

A scalding current rushed up his throat. A mouthful of blood spurted onto the ground. Intense grief crashed over him, and tears began to slide down his cheeks. Ru Xi was weeping bitterly.

The entire translation maintains the original narrative tone while rendering every name, term, and image in clear, natural English.