17 - Without mercy

Su Tao woke up a few hours later, and when he did, he instantly felt his body was stronger, and not by a little bit. He felt much much stronger, and he now had two hundred thirty pounds of strength, which was almost at the peak of the third bronze star.

Once one reached the third bronze star, they would have to reach two hundred fifty pounds of strength to be able to break through to the silver rank, but most would never be able to break through, and even those that did break through would have to take about ten years to do so.

This was because of the major amount of Qi required to break through along with the requirements of talent and potential. Without enough talent, one would not be able to break through fast enough, and without enough potential, one would not be able to break through at all no matter how talented they were.

This was why only one in ten people who reached the third bronze star would be able to break through to the silver rank, and after that, only one in a hundred would be able to break through to the second silver star.

Only in the two big families would one be able to break through in less than ten years.

He had no clue how or when he had broken through, but who was he to complain? After all, it was just work that he no longer needed to do. He felt his ribcage and was surprised to find that it was already halfway healed, and he figured it would only take about a week or two for it to heal now.

He did not know why it had not healed more while he was in that weird endless grassland, but he did not pay it any mind because it did not matter at all. By now, all the wounds on his back and shoulders had completely healed, leaving his skin smooth and perfect, without any flaws or even a scratch.

Then, while he was still looking at his own body, there came a knocking from the door. Then, Su Tao heard Su Xue open her door and walk out, after which he pretended to be asleep to avoid questions from her.

But he still kept his eyes ever so slightly open, to be able to see what was happening. But even his eyes being open only a sliver was still many times better than other people's sight with their eyes wide open.

He saw Su Xue walk up to the door and open it, after which he saw an old man on the other side. This man resembled Su Xue, and he figured that he must be her grandfather.

She then invited him in and closed the door. The old man looked at Su Tao for a second, then looked away. Su Xue led him into another room and shut the door, so as to not disturb Su Tao.

After she shut the door, Su Tao fully opened his eyes and was thinking to himself. When the old man had come into the house, he looked particularly distressed, and he had his eyebrows lightly furrowed. It was obvious he was worried about something, but the question was what?

A couple minutes passed by, and he suddenly heard yelling from the room. It was Su Xue yelling "They can't do that!!!" showing that she was very upset with whatever the old man had told her. The only thing Su Tao was able to make out other than that was her yelling about something being unfair.

A few minutes later, the old man left the house on his own and Su Xue stayed inside the room. Only after another few minutes did she come out. Su Tao had long ago pretended to be asleep again, but he still watched her. Her face was covered in distraught and she looked angry.

Then, she turned towards Su Tao and spoke to him.

"You broke through from the weakest possible one bronze star to almost the peak of the third in only a couple months. I helped you, now I need you to help me." There was no falter in her voice, and she knew that he was awake. He was surprised that she knew he was awake, but he did not let this bother him.

"I'm afraid that saving me is not enough to get me to help you. The reward for helping me is not being killed when I destroy the entire Su family," He spoke calmly and with a terrifying deadliness and certainty. He had opened his eyes, which were staring straight into hers.

In an instant, she felt as if she was seen naked and all of her secrets were exposed. She had felt his gaze before, but it was much stronger now. It contained an unshakable certainty, like a sturdy mountain lording over everything.

But then, she once again felt the feeling of being watched again. It was not Su Tao because his gaze was immensely strong and dominating, whereas the new one seemed extremely weak in comparison. She turned around and looked out the window, trying to find the source as she had this whole past month, but she had still not found anything.

But Su Tao was able to instantly see where the person watching her was. When he saw them, he noticed that Su Xue looked extremely anxious when that gaze landed on her. He put this thought aside for a moment as she spoke again.

"If you don't want to help me, that's fine, but this involves you too. You've already dragged yourself into it and now the only way out of it is if you help me," She spoke solemnly and sadly.

She was not bothered by the fact that he said he wanted to destroy the whole family. If she was in his position, she might try to do the same. She had had someone find out some information on him, and she found out that not only was his mother publicly tortured to death brutally, but his sister was also raped by the young master and killed in a no less brutal death, perhaps even more so than his mother, and that he cared for no one in the world as much as he cared for his sister.

She could not even imagine having the only people she ever cared about killed all in such brutal and ruthless ways. In fact, the methods of their deaths were beyond brutal, beyond heartless. They were just straight up evil.

"But I didn't drag myself into anything. You dragged me into this the moment you were sent to kill me, whether or not that was your choice. This is on you, which gives me no obligation to help you. So what makes you think that you deserve my help when all you've done is get in my way so far?"

His words were very blunt and direct, hurting Su Xue a little bit. No one had ever spoken to her in such a bashing tone, but she could not deny that what he had said was true. She had shot him through the arm with an arrow, then got him involved with Su Long unintentionally and gotten him nearly killed, which he only survived because she helped him. She now felt guilty about asking for his help, but she could not take it back.

At this point, Su Tao had silently snuck up beside her, so quietly that even she had not noticed. "You're lucky that I have a goal and happen to need your help. Otherwise I would leave you here with no help." As he said this, he pointed out his finger towards where the person hiding watching Su Xue was.

Su Xue was surprised that he managed to sneak up on her, but when she saw where he was pointing, she was astonished. She finally saw the person who had been watching her this whole time. They were well hidden, but she was able to barely see them. 'No wonder I never saw them,' she thought to herself.

Then, Su Tao slapped his hand onto where his broken ribs were, and almost ten drops of the purple liquid from his left eye jumped into his broken bones. He had used more than half of his left eye's power to do that, and he had done it to temporarily stabilize the ribs for what he was about to do.

"Get your bow and one for me. We go right now." He spoke with an indisputable authority. As she knew what he was going to do, she was worried about his health, but she figured that he knew how to not hurt himself any further and she had seen the purple liquid, and she knew how powerful its healing abilities were.

She quickly grabbed her bow and another one that she had lying around for him, then some quivers, and they headed out of the house. The moment they did, the man hiding moved, keeping his distance away from them, but not leaving entirely. He was watching where they were going.

But suddenly, before he had the chance to realize what had happened, there was a volley of arrows flying towards him from not only Su Xue, but also Su Tao. There were so many arrows that he could not avoid them all. He was only about three hundred feet away from them in the first place, and they were both master archers, making it impossible for him to dodge all of them.

He quickly took out a sword and a cheap shield. He was wearing a pure black robe with a single silver star on it, the same as those other two men who had attacked Su Tao before. He quickly ran away while the arrows were catching up to him, but he did not get far before he had to turn around to block the volley of arrows. It was obvious that he had the cheap shield with him in case he was discovered because the person he was watching was an archer.

The metal shield blocked some of the arrows, and some of them managed to punch a tiny little hole in it but made no actual damage. The rest he blocked with his sword while he backed away as fast as he could. He knew that there was no chance for him to win if they were to fight.

But suddenly, Su Tao put a lot of his right eye's power into one singular arrow, about a third of his entire reserve of power. This single arrow flew straight and true, going directly into the man's shield. Su Tao was intentionally aiming for his shield.

As it collided with the shield, unlike the others which only bounced off or caused minimal damage, it stuck solidly into the shield even going all the way through and jutting out the back of it almost all the way.

The arrow was sticking all the way into the shield and was only about a quarter inch from piercing all the way through it and going into the man's arm. When he saw this, he was terrified, but he was glad that the arrow had not gone through.

But the next moment his hopes were crushed when the arrow emitted green flashes of lightning, which spread through the conductive metal shield in only a moment. It instantly spread into his hand, numbing it severely and even burning it badly. It caused him extreme pain and he actually cried out in pain and nearly dropped the shield, with it drooping down.

He stumbled from the pain, but managed to hold onto the shield for a couple more moments. But the barrage of arrows did not stop and some of them slipped through his guard in the moment he was in pain. They impaled straight into his body and stuck out of his sword arm and his shoulder as well. He dropped the sword at that point, and the shield hand, which was being corroded by the green lightning, was burned and electrocuted, causing him to drop the shield and lose his only other method of defense.

This had all happened in less than a second, showing the pure efficiency of the green lightning.

After another round of arrows, one of them pierced into his leg and another into his foot, making him unable to get away. He fell to the ground helplessly and desperately crawled to get away. But he could not escape in the end.

As Su Tao reached him, he did not even hesitate in the slightest and punched straight towards the man's jaw. The man blocked with a barrier of inner energy in his hurt sword arm, but Su Tao's punch had perfect form, power, and momentum, as well as another portion of his right eye's power, causing the barrier to break and smashing his arm out of the way, with his momentum continuing to plow into the man's face without any hesitation, actually knocking out several teeth and breaking his nose as well.

Then, he grabbed the man's body and ran back over to Su Xue, who was still catching up. She was astonished to find that Su Tao was actually slightly faster than her despite her being higher ranked than him. She was even more surprised, however, to see his hit to the opponent's face with absolutely no hesitation whatsoever, breaking several teeth and permanently messing up the man's face just to knock him out.

"Let's go back now." He spoke abruptly, slightly scaring her. She did not expect him to end the fight so quickly. It was almost an instant win, and the whole battle only lasted at most a couple seconds. She expected to at least have to chase the man down a little bit before they caught him, but she just ignored this when she thought about how he had half beaten two silver ranks on his own while only being a two star bronze rank.

They took his knocked out body back to her residence where she tied him up tightly. Then, Su Tao stabbed his finger into the man's chest, with a bit of his right eye's power in his finger. The green lightning instantly woke up the man with a jolt of pain, and he groaned loudly with blood pouring out of his now deformed mouth.

Then, Su Tao violently grabbed the guy's hair, jerking his head into place before slapping him violently. This snapped the man back to reality. He looked in front of him, only to see Su Tao's expressionless face.

But when he looked into Su Tao's eyes, he saw nothing but death and destruction, an endless river of blood, destroying everything it touched. All of the warmness from his left eye had vanished without a trace, leaving him like a devil. The man felt that he could not lie to those eyes, as if he would not hesitate to kill him in the slightest.

His eyes instantly registered his fear, remembering the absolute lack of hesitation when this fifteen year old boy had launched himself at him to punch him so hard that he messed up his face. He was certain that this boy was the most terrifying fifteen year old boy he had ever seen, and also the most horrifying three star bronze rank he had seen.

Now, Su Tao spoke with command like a king speaking to a peasant, "Why were you watching her?!" He spoke softly, but there was absolutely no sign of hesitation or consideration in his voice, and there was even less room for negotiation.

But still the guy thought that there was nothing that this kid could do to him that was worse than the punishment for failing Su Long, so he decided to lie. "I was hired to do it. I don't know who hired me or why, I was just supposed t-" But he didn't even have a chance to finish his sentence.

Su Tao grabbed his mouth and held it shut, shutting him up. His grip was almost strong enough to break the man's jaw, despite only being at the third bronze star. His strength should not be that much, but it was perfectly placed with perfect balance and distribution, allowing him to exert much more pressure as well as having the force on both sides, doubling the force being exerted.

"I am going to ask you one more time... why were you watching her?" His voice was quiet and soft, like a mother speaking to a baby, but it contained a source of unknown terror in it for the man. It was a quiet voice of death. There was not even any killing intent that the man could sense, but he was scared nonetheless.

A moment of dead silence passed as Su Tao held the man's jaw tightly while staring directly into his eyes. At this point, the man was thoroughly terrified of Su Tao, with his fear only increasing as the moments passed.

Then, finally, the man broke, and he yelled out "Su Long made me do it! He hired me and my five senior brothers and sisters to deal with his affairs, including you and the girl! I was hired! Please don't kill me!" He begged because he knew that this person would not hesitate in the slightest to kill him.

He had reached his breaking point after a few seconds total of looking into Su Tao's eyes. He was literally begging for mercy. But Su Tao gave him none as he took the bow he had slung over his back, nocked an arrow, and shot the man in the middle of his forehead, instantly ending his life.