In The Shadows of The City (3)

'I still have about 15 seconds', Long Ming calculated the remaining duration of his resonance, while also thinking of some way to end this fight in one move.

"You are very talented, boy. It would be a shame to kill a golden sprout as prodigious as you! Why don't you give up your foolish rage and join me? Do you think I got here alone? Well, you are very mistaken! I have the support of countless bigwigs, whether from tycoons to young masters of this city. If you become my ally, I guarantee that I will introduce them to you; and with their support, reaching the intermediate stage of the Qi Gathering realm would not be impossible! "

While Zhi Hua tried to convince Long Ming, the young man pondered how to end this fight as quickly as possible.

'if I could actually control the forces of nature this fight would end very soon...', he began to think as he closed his eyes and pushed his senses to the maximum. All of his emotions became numb, and even that killing intent began to fade. If Zhi Hua had a higher cultivation level, he would notice a substantial change in Long Ming's state of mind. It was as if he was opening his body and soul to nature and all its creations.

Be it the Qi of the environment, or the fundamental forces of nature, and even the metaphysical energies that Long Ming nor any cultivator in that world was capable of understanding, he allowed all these things to enter his body and "communicate" with his senses.

Zhi Hua felt a strange discomfort as he watched Long Ming's lack of reaction. His senses picked up a turbulence in the qi of the environment, which was extremely abnormal and bizarre, to a level that scared Zhi Hua even more.

'Can he control the Qi in the environment? But how? This should be impossible!', Zhi Hua didn't know what to do at that moment, his instinct told him that he should attack him as soon as possible, however, this unknown phenomenon caused a numbing fear in him.

"...y-you're not going to finish this!" After three seconds, he finally gathered enough willpower to hurriedly run towards Long Ming. within a few tenths of a second, Zhi Hua was already facing Long Ming and brandished his sword towards his neck.

"Die!", he thought as he used all his strength to make that blow extremely powerful.

When the blade was about to touch his neck, Long Ming subconsciously took a step back, avoiding the blade, and another step forward, standing just a few centimeters away from Zhi Hua. Then, he raised his palm and redirected the wind Qi towards his opponent.

"urgh!", Zhi Hua was thrown several meters back when he felt a strong wind pushing him. he felt a slight pain as well as a stupor in his body, but otherwise he suffered no harm.

'8 seconds...', Long Ming calculated, as he began to frantically rotate his twinblade. As he spun his twinblade, he began to redirect all the air Qi into the blades of his weapon, so that after each spin, more and more wind Qi joined his blades. After half a second, a sort of whirlwind emerged from his spin, and in the next hundredth of a second, Long Ming rushed towards Zhi Hua.

Instantly, he approached Zhi Hua and turned his body around. After making a full turn, he quickly sent a diagonal slash towards Zhi Hua's chest, while rotating his twinblade in a way that made both blades cut into him, and also sent all that accumulated wind towards him.

Hurriedly, Zhi Hua jumped back, while using his sword to defend against the twinblade's attack. He was successful in this part, however, the subsequent wind caught him off guard and several cuts appeared around his body.

Long Ming didn't stop moving, then made a quick lunge, while using all the muscles in his legs as well as the Qi from the environment to propel him as fast as he could.

Then, the short distance of one meter that was between the two was instantly reduced, and a tenth of a second later, Long Ming pierced Zhi Hua's shoulder.

'7 seconds...', Long Ming momentarily let go of his twinblade and threw a series of punches at Zhi Hua. However, even with his shoulder pierced, Zhi Hua proved to be a persistent man and continued defending and attacking Long Ming who, due to the lack of time, allowed himself to be hit in exchange for hitting him as well.

'5 seconds...', Long Ming managed to deliver a powerful punch to Zhi Hua's chin, making him spit out blood as he retreated several steps, bewildered.

'3 seconds...', Long Ming used Qi to propel one of his punches and hit his belly, arching him. then threw another punch to his face and then several more punches all over his body.

'2 seconds...', Zhi Hua, even if he tried, was unable to defend himself any longer and soon fell to the ground, no longer feeling any strength in his body.

'1 second... it's over', Long Ming's eyes regained their standard color, as he began to look at Zhi Hua's fallen body, extremely panting. His arms and legs no longer had any strength, and he inevitably lay down on the ground, wanting to rest.

'using resonance in combat is still very problematic...', all his muscles hurt, and his head was boiling as if he was being cooked. These were the consequences of using resonance during a life or death combat, after all, his body was too weak to withstand (and control) all the energy of nature.

Of course, even with these consequences, he was still quite satisfied with the results of this usage, after all, he was able to utilize Qi and even break through a small realm, and face someone at the half-step stage of the Qi Gathering realm.

Namely, the way Long Ming used Qi in this battle would, in terms of cultivation, be something only possible in the Foundation Establishment realm, as this is when the cultivator becomes able to use Qi outside of his body. However, to utilize elemental Qi, such as air Qi, is only possible in the subsequent realm, due to the purity and mastery required. Obviously, all of this was unknown to him, but he still found it an astonishing feat.

"You're very strong, boy...", while Long Ming was reflecting on the fights, he suddenly hears Zhi Hua's voice, making him jump in fright and watch him in surprise.

"Seriously you're still alive?" Long Ming muttered in disbelief.

"still, you are no match for my boss...."

Long Ming got up with great difficulty and walked towards the dying Zhi Hua. His entire face was disfigured, and a huge pool of blood spread across the floor. No matter how Long Ming looked, it didn't seem like he would be able to survive for no more than a few hours.

"Even though your boss is strong, can he stop me from killing you right now?" Long Ming spoke mockingly as he looked straight at him. So he put his hands on his twinblade and tried to pull it out, but its weakness made it a chore, so he simply sent it straight into his space ring.

"...please...don't kill me," Zhi Hua's eyes widened as he noticed that weapon disappearing, and a feeling of despair began to come over him at the possibility that Long Ming's past is not simple either. .

'So he's the third type of person...', Long Ming thought as he remembered the reaction of the other people he had killed.

"Why should I let you live?" As he said this he squatted down and looked into Zhi Hua's eyes, which were half-open and quite swollen. This simple act of crouching made Long Ming feel even more pain, but he tried as much as possible to prevent his state from being reflected in his expression.

"I can tell you anything you want... didn't you come here because of the Hong Xing concert hall? I can tell you everything I know..." he said, using all his efforts to carry out this simple act .

"alright, tell me everything."

Zhi Hua seemed to have become more excited and regained his hope with Long Ming's request and proactively began to tell him everything he knew. According to him, the Hong Xing Playhouse is owned by a young master from the Lin family of cultivators. and every weekend, this young master goes to the show house to observe (and buy) the women he found most beautiful. In short, it seemed like the Hong Xing Playhouse was purely to nurture this young man's lusts.

As a property of the Lin family, Hong And in addition, there were other cultivators who, like Zhi Hua, worked by kidnapping or recovering the young girls who fled.

'Ten cultivators in the Qi Gathering Realm, huh... that would be enough to face some third-grade families...', Long Ming thought in astonishment. Just like everything in the world of cultivation, families and clans of cultivators also had a hierarchy, given their strongest members and lineage.

This hierarchy went from the fourth to the first degree, in descending order, so that the fourth degree is equivalent to the Body Tempering realm, the third degree to the Qi Gathering realm, and so on.

'and you're telling me that all these cultivators are working just to satisfy the lust of a single young man?', that seemed very absurd, even for a family as powerful as the Lin family. So, Long Ming began to suspect that there was something wrong with it, but unfortunately, there was no way he could do anything at that time.

'I'm still too weak to destroy this concert hall...', he lamented, and forced himself to put these thoughts aside.

"Since you were the leader of this group, you must have gained a lot of rewards, am I right?" Long Ming suddenly asked, wishing there were some loot for him to loot.

"rewards?"

"yes, rewards. You know, martial arts manuals, pills, good quality weapons, and even a yellow grade cultivation method," Long Ming specified, his eyes almost shining with desire.

"yes, I do… it's all in the basement of my house," Zhi Hua spoke honestly.

"really? thank you, you were very useful Zhi Hua", with these words he began to get up to go loot the basement.

"please spare me—", before Zhi Hua could cry out for her life once again, Long Ming stepped on her head, crushing it with what little strength he had regained.

Without looking at the now lifeless body, he walked towards the house.

It was a huge house, measuring around 500m² and three floors, but he didn't bother to explore its interior and went straight towards the basement entrance. Fortunately, it didn't take long to find a door leading down.

Just as he was about to open the door, he suddenly froze and, with a sigh, closed his eyes to enter resonance again. After almost a minute, he opened his eyes and could notice, to his exasperation, a formation around the door.

"if I had been reckless his death wouldn't have been completely in vain", he muttered to himself. If Long Ming recklessly opened the door, it was likely that he would activate this formation and perhaps die in the process.

Long Ming was not proficient enough to know how this formation works, so he only focused on how to deactivate it. Observing his surroundings, he noticed a cluster of Qi in some parts of that wall, and then, with a knife in hand, he began to scratch at the runes inscribed in these places. After that, the Qi cluster began to become unstable, until it completely fell apart.

With that done, and ensuring there was nothing left that could be a potential trap, he opened the door and began to descend into the basement.

Soon after, he found himself in a fairly large and dark room. Then Long Ming took out a candle from his spatial ring and lit it, faintly illuminating his surroundings.

"hmm, quite interesting," he muttered in satisfaction when he noticed a bookshelf with about six books, as well as a sword stand, with three swords, and a small chest just ahead.

The first thing Long Ming went to see was the books on that shelf. To his surprise, there were various martial arts techniques and manuals, including even a yellow-grade sword technique. In total, there were about six books, four of which were sword techniques, one footwork manual, and one sword art manual.

Soon after, he went to the weapons range and checked the swords. He wasn't proficient enough to figure out which were good swords or not, so he put them all away without much thought and resumed his gaze at the chest.

'Did he put a cultivation method here?' Long Ming thought hopefully and opened the chest with his eyes shining with greed.

Inside the chest, he noticed a book with a worn appearance and written on its cover: "Sharp Qi Breathing Method", and there was also a small leather bag, with several gold coins.

With a huge smile on his face, Long Ming put the book and bag into his spatial ring and left the basement.

Soon after arriving at the residence's courtyard, he looked in surprise at a guard getting up from the ground, after throwing the body of that criminal to the side.

'Ah, of course... I hadn't killed him', Long Ming thought internally, upon noticing this small detail. He began to think about how to deal with this guard, whether to leave him alive or kill him, and soon, the two were facing each other.

"t-were you the one who did all this?!", the guard asked with surprise and fear in his voice. In response, Long Ming began to smile mysteriously and moved even closer to the guard, then, when the two were about a meter away, he spoke, "Do you by any chance wish to live? Or do you want me to kill you now?"

"Please spare me! I'm just a simple guard, I have no relationship with Boss Zhi Hua!" the guard said desperately as he prostrated himself on the ground. Long Ming stared at him for a few seconds, satisfied with his reaction, and then began to speak to him: "Okay, if you want me to spare you, you will have to do a task for me..."