Chapter 444 94: I'm Better at Using My Fists

Speaking in a cold voice, Lu Chao walked toward her, his blade pointed downward at an angle. His black suit flapped wildly in the wind, and the sand behind him scattered with every step of his leather shoes.

BOOM!

In that exact moment, the air trembled. A rocket-propelled grenade, trailing a fiery exhaust, blasted straight at him. Lu Chao paused, catching sight of the attacker from the corner of his eye. At the mouth of the valley, the warlord commander wore a grave expression, staring at him with a mix of dread and killing intent. Nearby, an armored vehicle had engaged its weapon modules and fired.

SWOOSH!

The rocket-propelled grenade shrieked with an ear-piercing whistle, reaching him almost the instant he noticed it. The warlord's men had clearly sensed that something was wrong and planned to join forces with the Tan family to deal with this uninvited guest.

CLANG!

However, the blade flashed. Lu Chao stood firmly in place as the sand and dirt behind him erupted in a massive explosion. Blinding fire swallowed everything in the vicinity, melting the gravel and scorching the earth. Using sheer brute force, he had cleanly sliced apart the low-velocity rocket grenade. Then, with a sudden dash, he vanished, reappearing right in front of the woman in black who was trying to retreat.

SLASH!

He swung his blade without leaving her any room to escape. Shocked and enraged, the woman in black hastily raised her sword with her right hand to block. Meanwhile, her left hand launched a hidden blade enveloped in Qi Flame.

CLANG!

A metallic clash rang out as their weapons collided. Lu Chao tilted his head slightly, dodging the Qi Flame-wrapped hidden blade. The tearing gale brushed past his shoulder, causing his suit to violently flutter. Suddenly, Lu Chao's ears twitched at a faint noise. He cast a quick glance to his side.

SWOOSH!

The warlord commander, a Superpower Armor User, stomped the ground and launched himself into the air like a fired cannonball. Bright blue arcs of light flickered around him. Charging forward like a battle tank, he erupted with magnetic field fluctuations on par with the Exploration Level.

BOOM!

In an instant, the ground trembled, the sand caving in several inches. Intersecting arcs of light flashed before Lu Chao's eyes. The commander, clad in a military-green combat suit, closed the distance to half a meter. Stomping shallow pits into the dirt, he threw a devastating punch aimed straight at Lu Chao's temple. Life Energy gathered frantically around his fist, visibly merging with the bright blue magnetic arcs into a blinding light.

At the same time, the woman in black let out a fierce shout. "Haa!"

Seeing a glimmer of hope, she endured her injuries and activated a Secret Technique, desperately blocking the shifting trajectory of the black Ink Blade. In that fleeting moment, two Exploration Level combatants joined forces, both unleashing their full strength. The wind and sand grew colder, saturated with killing intent. Lu Chao seemed to have fallen into absolute peril with no way to retreat.

"Die!" the warlord commander roared furiously.

WHOOSH!

The wind from the punch arrived, feeling like a falling sledgehammer about to strike its target.

THUD!

A muffled explosion erupted! A white shockwave swept through the fierce wind, tearing up the earth as it expanded. The rocky sand beneath the trio sank several inches and fractured outward for meters. Flying gravel was swept away by the gale, carrying wisps of scorching heat.

The woman in black's pupils contracted, and the attacking commander's face fell as he stared intently at the man before him. A bronze-colored left fist, acting like a steel shield, blocked the strike in mid-air. The full-force blow from the Superpower Armor was easily stopped; Lu Chao's tightly clenched fist didn't tremble in the slightest.

"I am actually better with my fists," Lu Chao said.

BOOM!

His Iron Thorn Body fully erupted, displaying a might far surpassing any invulnerable defense. Thirty percent of the Rebound Force poured out, instantly causing a secondary explosion on the ground and kicking up a billowing cloud of dust. The warlord commander who had thrown the punch looked utterly bewildered. His arm shuddered, and his body was forced half a step back uncontrollably.

STOMP!

In that exact moment, as their fists separated, Lu Chao's left arm shot forward.

GRAB!

His fingers formed a claw, seizing the head of the woman in black, whose eyes were wide with astonishment. Without a shred of hesitation, he flipped his right palm, holding the long blade in a reverse grip.

SLASH!

The black blade tore through the air, violently slicing across her neck.

"Why did you dare to go to the Storm Club?"

As blood splattered, all her shock and bewilderment froze in that instant. Hearing that barely audible, icy voice, the woman in black widened her eyes in disbelief. A figure who was supposed to be missing—someone who shouldn't have dared to show his face again—was now permanently etched into her mind, impossible to erase.

She thought, "It's actually... him?"

THUD!

Her head separated from her body, and she collapsed backward onto the ground, thoroughly dead. Lu Chao tossed the severed head with its long black hair onto the dirt. Drops of blood slid down the surface of the Ink Blade, merging with the growing pool on the sandy ground and seeping into the rocky layer.

The warlord commander thought, "She died just like that?" His eyes were filled with suspicion and dread, a profound chill rising from the bottom of his heart. Without a second thought, he immediately twisted his body, intending to retreat into the valley.

SWOOSH!

Flames sprayed from the heels of his boots, drastically accelerating his movements. The flickering, bright blue arcs of light became even more translucent, as if an energy engine were operating within him, exploding with frantic power. He was on the verge of opening up enough distance to successfully escape.

"Where do you think you're going?"

THUD!

The commander's heart jolted, seemingly skipping half a beat. The cold, hard voice entering his ears was like the detonation of a tracking mark. Formless terror surged and expanded rapidly, swallowing the warlord commander's mind whole.

"You..."

Fear, horror... his vision blurred. In his eyes, Lu Chao's figure seemed to distort, transforming into an apex predator of the human species—a higher Hunter on the food chain.

In that fleeting window of opportunity...

SLASH!

The Ink Blade flashed past. Lu Chao twirled his blade, shaking off the blood before sheathing it.

THUD!

The warlord commander's eyes widened as his body crashed to the ground. A bloody line running down from his glabella expanded rapidly until his entire body split perfectly in two, spraying a massive amount of blood. The armored organs and bionic prosthetics inside his body ruptured one after another. All the armored circuits on his body dimmed and extinguished, losing every trace of light.

WHOOSH.

Another summer breeze blew past, sweeping across the sweltering, desolate Gobi desert. In just a few short minutes, three Superpower Level fighters had died one after another. Whether it was the remaining members of the Tan family or the warlord soldiers stationed at the valley entrance, all of them stared with wide eyes, their faces plastered with absolute terror.

SWOOSH!

Lu Chao's figure flickered, and an invisible massacre quietly spread. When it was finally over, jeeps and military-green pickup trucks had been smashed and sent flying in all directions. Some were embedded in the rocky cliff faces, while others were reduced to scorched wreckage on the sandy ground. The sturdy armored vehicles were twisted and deformed, some even split entirely in half. The warlord soldiers stationed nearby were all reduced to corpses, and the majority of the Tan family members lay dead on the ground as well, their spilling blood continuously dyeing the earth red.

Only one remained untouched.

"C-Commissioner, sir." A man wearing the Tan family's security combat uniform stood off to the side of the convoy, an expression of sheer awe on his face. He spoke with a trembling voice, "Sir, regarding my status..."

"Go back," Lu Chao said, shaking his head calmly and signaling for him to leave.

This man was one of the informants the Special Investigation Team had planted within the Tan family. It was precisely because of the intel and satellite coordinates provided by this informant that Lu Chao was able to find this place and eliminate Du Lie and the woman in black. After this incident, the informant's undercover mission within the Tan family would end, sparing him from any ensuing suspicion or retaliation.

"Yes, sir!" the informant nodded hastily, before quickly getting into a jeep and driving away.

Lu Chao stood quietly in place, watching the tires kick up a rolling cloud of dust until the vehicle disappeared at the end of the sandy wilderness. He wasn't worried about his identity being exposed. Right now, his appearance was completely different from 'Lu Chao', and even differed from the Celestial Hunter. He simply looked like an ordinary thirty-year-old man.

With that thought passing, Lu Chao withdrew his gaze. Looking at the corpses strewn across the ground, he strode over to the woman in black and pulled off her mask. It revealed a face with fairly delicate features, adorned with light makeup. She had clearly died with her eyes wide open; the shock and doubt lingering in her gaze were forever frozen.

"Tan Yu..." Lu Chao recognized her identity, knowing her to be Tan Shanzhong's adopted daughter.

According to what the informant had just relayed, the Tan family members had split into two groups after leaving the Red Maple City Circle. Following Tan Shanzhong's instructions, Tan Yu had taken Du Lie and the others to take root in the wilderness. Her goal was to collaborate with factions like the Iron Sand Army and become a new, major warlord in the wild. As for Tan Shanzhong, he had hidden himself very deeply. He had taken his people to another Rebel base, completely defecting to Al-Qaeda.

"That old bastard." Lu Chao narrowed his eyes. He could easily tell that Tan Shanzhong was trying to disperse the risks and continue developing the Tan family.

Soon after, while searching the bodies for loot, his gaze drifted toward Nanyun Mountain in the distance. The biological serum he acquired back then came from here. Beneath that mountain peak lay a hidden underground experimental base, along with a powerful creature suspected to be a Beast King. However, according to the informant, the reason the Iron Sand Army was lingering in this area was because their leader was searching for something nearby. The commotion from the recent battle hadn't been small, yet the Iron Sand Army leader, named Gwight, hadn't shown up.

"Could it be..." Lu Chao's eyes flickered as a guess formed in his mind. "Is he looking for the experimental base here? Or could it be..."

BOOM!

Suddenly, the ground quaked, and a muffled boom echoed from the direction of Nanyun Mountain. Lu Chao's eyes sharpened as he looked at the ground. Sand and gravel were tumbling down, and the dust was shivering. It was as if terrifying creatures were engaged in a fierce battle deep underground.