Chapter Fifty: Ferocity

The towering, burly man was absorbed in flipping through the illustrated book, completely engrossed, when suddenly, he sensed something unusual atop his head. He lifted his gaze, reached up, and patted his scalp. Then he turned around, a deep, guttural growl rumbling from his throat—the kind of resonant snarl a lion or tiger might make before pouncing on its prey.

A woman shrieked in terror, and in the next instant, the entire bookstore erupted into chaos and shouting.

“It’s a barbarian!”

“A beastman! Run for your lives…”

Pandemonium broke out on the spot. Screams and wails shattered the silence as some people dropped their books and fled in panic. In their rush, no one could tell left from right. Some darted left, some right; a few, their legs weak with fear, collapsed after only a step or two. Others crashed into each other and fell, unable to get back up.

When the little chubby boy knocked off the man’s large black hat with his plastic stick, the giant’s true face was revealed…

His head and face were covered in brown fur, his eyes burned with a blood-red hue, nostrils flared to the sky, lips protruded in a snarl… Yellowed, jagged teeth jutted out, some still threaded with suspicious bits of flesh.

At a glance, a violent and savage aura surged from him.

Now, he fixed his gaze on the child, clearly displeased at being disturbed. His lips curled, baring his fangs as he rose to his full height—easily over two meters, towering like a mountain.

“Xiaobao, come back here!”

The scholarly middle-aged man chasing after the boy cried out hoarsely, fear forgotten as he lunged forward to push his son away.

A sudden gust seemed to sweep through the air, followed by a muffled boom that made the floor tremble. A massive hand swung down from above.

The sickening sound of bones shattering echoed—crack, crack.

Xiao Nan’s eyelid twitched.

Though he stood a little way off, his eyesight was excellent. He watched as the hideous, hulking beastman swung a great palm down onto the head of the middle-aged man.

With a dull thud, blood sprayed from the man’s neck like a fountain. His head had been pummeled deep into his shoulders, leaving only a patch of hair jutting above them. His bones were pulverized to pulp; both legs shattered into seven or eight pieces…

What lay there now was nothing more than an unrecognizable mound of mangled flesh.

The change had come so swiftly that, in the blink of an eye, the once-peaceful, serene bookstore was transformed into a blood-soaked slaughterhouse—so much so that even the world-weary Xiao Nan nearly failed to react in time.

Indeed, what one reads in books can never compare to witnessing such heart-stopping terror firsthand.

The textbooks said that after the worlds were connected, war between the two races left corpses strewn everywhere, and every encounter was a fight to the death…

Xiao Nan had always assumed those were just figures of speech.

Now, seeing this bear-like beastman strike without warning, he understood. This world, which on the surface seemed little different from the peaceful one he once knew, was fundamentally altered. No one could guarantee absolute safety… Even hiding at home or walking down the street, disaster could fall from the sky at any moment.

Without strength, one was nothing more than livestock awaiting slaughter.

The barbarian’s slap had reduced the middle-aged man to a heap of pulp, and yet he still seemed unsatisfied. With a roar and a savage grin, he reached out his massive paw to seize the chubby boy.

The boy stood rooted to the spot, paralyzed by terror, his whole body trembling, his face pale and twitching as if in a fit—incapable even of running.

“How could I just stand by and watch?” Xiao Nan sighed, his gaze turning icy.

Deep down, he had hoped to quietly cultivate his strength before getting entangled with formidable enemies. To have a second chance at life was no easy thing, and he intended to cherish this fortune.

Yet some situations brook no choice… Like this moment before him—could he turn and flee?

He might fool others, but he could never deceive his own conscience.

The men and women fleeing and screaming in the bookstore were, if not all ordinary people, certainly not masters. Most were just a bit stronger and healthier than average, perhaps with some minor training.

If he did not act, the result was obvious: the barbarian would go on a killing spree, rampaging with no one to stop him.

A flurry of thoughts raced through Xiao Nan’s mind.

In truth, at the very moment the barbarian struck down the middle-aged man and reached for the chubby boy, Xiao Nan had already lunged forward, body low.

Like an arrow loosed from its string, he sliced through the air with a piercing wind.

In less than half a breath, he had crossed the ten-odd meters between them and arrived before the beastman…

With a ringing clang, the “Moonlight” sword flashed from its scabbard, tracing a brilliant arc of light. With a shrill whistle, the blade swept diagonally toward the beastman’s throat, neither a slash nor a stab, but something between.

This was not some arcane technique he had learned in this world.

In a deadly encounter, there was no time for fancy moves. Speed was everything, and Xiao Nan trusted in the legendary chrysanthemum-steel sword in his hand. His opening move was a “draw-cut”—a swift, practiced slash from the scabbard.

Though it was a sword rather than a blade, it made no difference to him; he used the friction between scabbard and edge to accelerate the strike.

Xiao Nan was a pragmatist—traditional martial arts, modern combat, Western or Eastern techniques, he had studied them all.

His aim was always the same: to kill or save with the quickest, most efficient method.

At the peak of his previous life, with a body honed to its limits, he could draw and cut in a tenth of a second, striking thirteen blows in a single breath—faster than many who had spent a lifetime on the blade.

Now, though his body was only about twice as strong as an ordinary man's, he trusted he could thrust three or four times in the blink of an eye.

The hulking beastman, for all his bulk, was far from slow. His crimson eyes flickered as, in an instant, his grasping hand snapped back to guard his throat, intercepting the gleaming blade.

Blood sprayed, fur flew.

Xiao Nan’s sword struck, but it felt as if he’d hit a wall of rubber and steel. A powerful, resilient force rebounded, numbing his wrist; the sword nearly flew from his grasp with a resonant hum.

His heart sank. He pulled back his sword, and without hesitation, swept the boy aside with his left hand, sending him tumbling backward as Xiao Nan himself retreated at speed.

“Call the police! No—get your father!” he shouted, directing the words to Zhang Xiaorou—part warning, part plea for reinforcements, but also hoping to get her away from danger.

Whether the girl understood, he wasn’t sure. He only hoped she wouldn’t collapse in tears again.

The boy tumbled in Zhang Xiaorou’s direction. This time, the girl did not cry; she bit her lip, caught the chubby boy in her arms, and ran deeper into the bookstore—pulling out her phone as she went.

Her choices were perfectly clear-headed.

Xiao Nan retreated toward the shop’s entrance—he had no intention of fighting the barbarian inside. Clearly, this beastlike monster was not someone he could handle at his current strength.

His sword had struck home, but its effect was minimal.

He had only managed to slice a shallow wound into the barbarian’s arm. Though the flesh was split and blood flowed freely, Xiao Nan knew he had merely cut the surface; not only had he failed to reach bone, he had barely parted the muscle.

Such an injury would have left an ordinary person screaming in agony, but to a savage brute like this, it did nothing but enrage him.

Xiao Nan even suspected that if not for the treasured sword he had shamelessly begged from Teacher Tang Zhixuan, a common weapon would not even have pierced the beastman’s hide.

It was, to say the least, a rather awkward situation.