Chapter Three: The Tiger's Tail Kick and the Overlord's Elbow

“No, no, please don’t!”
The girl’s voice rang out in a high, trembling pitch, filled with both terror and shame.
“You’re about to die anyway, what does it matter? Stop struggling…”
A boy’s voice barked harshly in reply—young, just past adolescence, full of rough malice.
Then came the sharp, unmistakable sound of fabric tearing.
And inevitably, heavy, ragged breathing…
“Damn it, Beard, there’s something going on inside. What are they doing—having one last go before dying?”
Outside the door, two men stood guard, tense and anxious, their eyes fixed on the entrance, ears straining for any noise within.
They crouched low, poised for flight at any second. The scar-faced brute on the left flinched at the sounds from inside, cursing in a low, angry mutter.
The burly man on the right, sporting a wild beard, started as well, his hand instinctively pressing against the bulge at his waist—clearly the outline of a weapon beneath his clothes.
“This is bad. The boss said the sacrifice has to be perfect—we went through so much to find her. There are rules. The more terrified she is, the better—but above all, she needs to be pure.”
Beard’s own voice was strained with anxiety.
“So do we just stand out here and watch? Or should we go in? Time’s almost up…”
“Hurry! Get in there and separate them. There’s still time to pull him off. Damn it, tie them up!”
“Tying them might cut off circulation—the flavor will be off, and the God of Golo will be furious.”
“We can’t worry about that now,” Beard decided with sudden resolve.
Peering through the iron door’s peephole, the two men argued in hushed tones, fully aware that any more delay would ruin the entire sacrificial ritual.
From not far off, the furious cadence of a chanting incantation could be heard, laced with growing anger. Clearly, the boss had sensed the disturbance in the hidden chamber.
He was furious—this was turning very ugly.
Thank heavens the ritual, once begun, could not be stopped. If they failed, the boss would surely find time to hack them to death himself.
Faces pale with dread, the two men flung open the door and rushed inside.
This time, the scar-faced man was in the lead, his hand darting for the boy hunched over in the center of the room…
Anger surged in him, his arm muscles bulging as he grabbed with all his strength—no intention of holding back.
Time to teach this brat a lesson.
Wouldn’t it have been easier to just be a quiet sacrifice? Why all this scheming?

...

Xiao Nan was anxious, but his hands and feet worked swiftly.
As he kept busy, he listened intently to the sounds beyond the door, calculating the pace and stride of the two guards charging in.
The earlier ripping noise had only been the sound of his own school uniform torn open at the chest.
He had to admit, the fabric of these uniforms was excellent—the sound was crisp and satisfying.
From his professional perspective, his classmate Zhang Xiaorou’s cries sounded a bit forced—more shrill than genuinely terrified…
He’d barely moved, yet she was already wailing as if her life were ending. If a seasoned criminal had heard, he’d have known something was off at once.
Still, whatever he might have grumbled, their performance had been convincing enough.

Because the two guards had taken the bait and come charging inside.
Xiao Nan drew a deep breath; veins stood out on his forehead, his eyes shot through with red.
His body curved like a drawn bow, one leg bent, the other extended, ten toes gripping the floor. His hands hovered just above the ground, elbows dropped, every muscle gathering strength.
He heard the rush of wind behind his neck, the pounding of heavy footsteps—the kind of details a lifetime of combat had taught him to read without conscious thought, instantly mapping the attackers’ positions and intentions.
He inhaled again, loosening and tensing his body in turn, drawing blood and energy to their peak.
This was not any sword art or technique from his original body, but the result of over a decade’s extreme training—external hard qigong, a method to toughen the flesh.
Holding his breath, he could make his blood boil, his nerves steel themselves—knives would barely sting, bullets would not drive him back…
In short, it was a fool’s art for those who didn’t care if they lived or died.
And only the fearless survived.
This new body was frail, so all he could do was hold his breath, force his blood to surge, and wring out every last drop of strength.
If he’d still had his original body, he could have braced himself like a stone statue—he would have charged a small hill without hesitation.
But this was no time for charging hills.
The instant Scarface’s hand closed around the back of his neck, Xiao Nan’s body snapped like a released spring—hands and feet slammed down on the floor, and his coiled right leg shot up like the lash of a tiger’s tail…
A sharp “swish” split the air.
Crack—
It sounded, to his practiced ear, like two eggs breaking.
The kick came out of nowhere.
A moment ago, he’d been playing the helpless victim; the next, his body snapped like a bowstring, all his strength focused in his right leg—a backward kick, right between Scarface’s legs.
[Tiger Tail Kick].
A blood-curdling howl split the air.
Scarface’s eyes bulged wide as saucers, his body leaping nearly a meter, seized by convulsions, then collapsed in a heap with a heavy thud.
The ferocious rebound in Xiao Nan’s right Achilles tendon left his entire limb numb.
He was shocked at how tough the man’s body was, but there was no time to look back. Using the recoil from his kick, he pivoted on his toes, twisted his waist, and spun half a turn—hurtling straight into the arms of the bearded brute who had rushed in right behind.
Limbs braced, blood surging, he drew power from waist to elbow, and with the force of his spin, thrust his elbow forward like a spear…
A sharp crack—the blow landed square on the man’s Adam’s apple.
[Conqueror’s Elbow].
Gurgling noises erupted.
The bearded guard had barely sidestepped Scarface’s falling bulk, hands outstretched to pull apart the boy and girl sprawled on the floor, when everything changed in a heartbeat…
He had no time to bring up his hands to shield himself—Xiao Nan’s elbow sliced through the air, smashing into his throat.
Agony contorted his features; clutching his neck, he could only gurgle, staring in disbelief at the cold, emotionless eyes before him.
Wind stirred at his side—the seemingly frail boy had already scooped up the girl, bolting for the door.
The man’s vision swam, and he crashed to the floor, unmoving.

That elbow had crushed his throat, vertebrae jutting backward—there was no surviving that.
Xiao Nan’s kick and elbow might not have looked like anything special, but they were the product of a decade of life-or-death combat experience.
Real fights to the death rarely required fancy moves.
For him, the best technique was the one that ended the threat, that let him live another day—anything that worked was a good technique, simple or complicated.
Unlike certain so-called realists who scorned traditional martial arts, he placed particular value on the deadliest tricks and feints of his own discipline.
Punches, kicks, grapples, wrestling—gouging eyes, crushing groins—he used whatever got the job done.
In the public eye, using such moves might be called ruthless, or even sinister, but in the chaos of a locked room, no one was there to object.
And even if the whole nation were watching, when life was on the line, scruples meant nothing.
This was the principle Xiao Nan had always fought by.
Martial arts were born to kill—if you weren’t ruthless, what was the point? For show?
Belief shaped style, and so, for ten years, Xiao Nan’s fighting bore his unique stamp.
Despite his inferior strength and physique, compared to the two guards, his attacks were swift, lethal, and perfectly executed.
A single leg, a single elbow—simple in appearance, but every ounce of strength, every drop of blood, was wrung into them.
He struck to kill—clean, decisive. No one could have done better.
“Ah… ah…”
Zhang Xiaorou’s feigned screams suddenly turned much more real.
She forced herself to keep shrieking, afraid Xiao Nan would turn his fury on her, and even tried to recall scenes from the forbidden movies she’d secretly watched with her best friend—the actress had screamed just like this.
Acting was easy, she told herself. She was talented, and bound for the best universities.
Then she saw the boy’s lithe, burning body coil above her, snake-like, springing to kick one man down and elbow another to death.
He seemed so fragile and waifish at rest, as if a breeze could knock him over, but in motion, he was like an arrow loosed, hands and feet striking like lightning.
In a heartbeat, he brought down two men, grabbed her, and raced for the door.
Blinking in the sudden daylight, Zhang Xiaorou could only scream, her mind blank with shock.
Xiao Nan had no time for distractions. He’d rescued hostages before—mostly women and children—and his actions were smooth, practiced.
Bursting through the door in one fluid motion, his face still flushed with the harsh qigong, he felt the stabbing agony in his elbow and the sharp, burning pain at his heel—his heart sank.
A pack of seven or eight men rushed toward him, cursing loudly, led by a hulking brute whose face was a mask of malice—he covered two or three meters in a single stride, clearly a force to be reckoned with.
And Xiao Nan? He’d pulled off his ambush, gotten out of the chamber…
But though he’d taken down two men, his elbow and heel throbbed with injury, weak and numb.
Once his breath gave out, he feared he’d collapse on the spot, drained of all strength.