Hand of Death

Suddenly, a charming young lady came from upstairs and moved in front of the old man.

"Please stop beating grandfather! He'll die!"

The young man wouldn't bat an eye at beating her as well, but he stopped himself since he remembered why he was here. He put back on his cunning smile, took out a piece of paper and handed it to her.

"Sure, just pay this bill for now."

The granddaughter took one look at the amount written on the paper and shouted with disbelief.

"This is ridiculous!"

"Well of course, he missed a payment so unfortunately we have to increase the monthly payment to make up for the amount."

"But, but-"

"I understand that he isn't in the best of conditions right now, so I'll come back at a later date."

The granddaughter wanted to shout, 'You're the one who did this to him!', but she focused on her grandfather's condition instead.

Up to this point, Shui didn't have much interest in the situation, but what the young man said before leaving the shop changed that.

"The Wright Financial Services looks forward to your continued business."

Shui didn't care about how ugly the granddaughter's face got when she heard him say this. What mattered to him was the name that the young man mentioned. It was a name that he only heard a few times in his dream, but it was stuck in his mind. It was the name that led to his mother's ruin, and the one he swore to get revenge on.

'Since I didn't want to become overcome by emotion, I put it at the back of my mind. But I can't exactly forgive and forget now can I.'

Shui stalked the man as he left the antique shop. He was at the fifth level in the Mortal Realm so if he wanted to be sure of killing him, Shui had to do it without giving him a chance to react.

The young man might have seemed relaxed but he was aware that there was a pair of eyes watching him. However, he was used to these gazes so he knew that the culprit was either a scout or an assassin. He knew he wasn't very strong, but that also meant anyone assigned to watching him wouldn't be that strong either. It would be best if they stuck to watching, that way he could let his boss handle the rest. But even if he was attacked, once he used the flare he had, help would come rushing to his rescue. If they were overwhelmingly stronger than him then this would be his last day, but if he was able to live through it he would definitely take revenge. As someone who survived in the underworld for so long, he had already made his resolve.

Abruptly, he sensed something coming at him from behind.

'So you're attacking now, huh?'

The culprit probably thought he was caught off guard, but the fact that he foolishly thought so put a smile on the young man's face. The young man swiftly turned around and slammed his fist into the incoming object, and felt it burst open.

"Huh?"

Aside from how surprisingly easy his fist pierced through, the young man was stunned by the foul-smelling objects that landed on him. Right as he realized what he had punched was just a bag of garbage, a hand went in from behind and pierced through his chest. Soon after, his body withered into bone and skin.

Even with martial intent, Shui knew that he wouldn't be able to kill the young man in a fair fight. It would be different if he had truly reached one-star saint body, but that would take a few more days at the very least. Luckily, there was another way for him to get a quick boost of power, but he only had one shot.

"Mmm. I guess it worked out, but I can't really depend on this."

When Shui pulled out his hand, he was disgusted by what should have been his arm. It was green and covered by nauseating yellow boils that would make a normal person vomit after one look. This was the result after he turned all of the essence he had stored up into nature energy and used it to strengthen his arm. This would be a suicidal idea for anyone else, but because he had reached the perfect limit of Mortal Realm he could overcome this difficulty. As he quickly lost his transformed state, Shui went on top of a building and focused on fixing his arm. Just like he could mutate his body into different forms, he could also reverse this forced mutation.

After a few minutes, his arm was back to normal but the image was still clear in his head.

"I'll just refine what I have for the rest of the night."

Compared to the essence he had built up, the essence of the young man was a little bit better so Shui could be satisfied with it. Even more than that, he was happy that he succeeded. Still, it wasn't enough to be called revenge, just a bit of harassment.

By the next day, when Shui went to the martial academy with Ali then left to Nikolai's house, rumours of a dangerous person were everywhere. According to a pair of eyewitnesses, it was a man who looked so average that you could probably find a few look-alikes in one village. However, when this man choked someone, their body quickly shrivelled up and became a dried corpse.

This along with a couple other cases of dried corpses being found raised a slight panic that there was a cultivator practising evil methods in Cyrus. The town guards quickly investigated these cases but they couldn't find even a hint of the killer's aura, leaving them quite befuddled. For the time being, since the killer's hand was imprinted on the neck of the victims, he was codenamed the 'Hand of Death'. When Shui heard about this name, he had mixed feelings but didn't let it bother him too much.

In the clothing shop, Jeanne was talking with her husband during a lull period. He wasn't that handsome, but he looked like a kind and reliable fellow standing at six feet in height.

"What do you think, Jeanne? You heard about that 'Hand of Death' guy, the town's dangerous."

"Trey, we've talked about this already. I can't leave here."

"But you know there's no hope for the shop here. If we leave you can make a better shop. You can bring the girls and Shui with you too."

"The answer's still no."

This wasn't the first time Trey tried to convince Jeanne to leave town with him. Ali and Sally cherished this place due to the memories they shared with Suiri, but didn't have a problem with Jeanne leaving. Out of the three of them, Jeanne had the best business sense so she would certainly do well if she had an oppurtunity in a new place. On many occasions, Ali and Sally had tried to convince her that she should leave, but she would always rebute their efforts by asking if they were okay with leaving as well, and they would always hesitate to give an answer. So when they saw this sight, all they could do was sigh.