The carriage continued forward, soon arriving outside the village.

Smoke and fire filled the village. A number of bandits from Cyan Cloud Mountain were searching from house to house, and the bulging packs on their backs showed just how bountiful their plunder had been.

That alone would have been bad enough, but from some of the farmhouses came the heart-wrenching screams of women. Every so often, a bandit would saunter out, hitching up his pants with a look of pure satisfaction on his face.

One didn’t need to ask what was happening inside those rooms.

Wu Liangchen’s expression grew cold. The leaping flames reflected in his slightly narrowed eyes as a murderous aura began to rise around him.

"Don’t look outside the carriage," Wu Liangchen murmured, then urged the horse onward.

When the bandits guarding the main road saw a carriage approaching, they couldn’t help but chuckle.

"This one’s got some nerve. Can’t he see we’re busy? Daring to just roll up on us like this... Does he have a death wish?"

"Stop the carriage. Kill the men, keep the women."

Soon, the bandits had laid a horse-tripping rope across the road. They grinned, watching the carriage head straight into their trap.

Only a few of the more perceptive bandits felt that something was wrong. The carriage’s appearance, after all, was just too strange.

It made no attempt to hide or flee, heading straight for them. No matter how you looked at it, this wasn’t the action of an ordinary person.

So, these men discreetly took a few steps back, hiding themselves within the larger group.

"Hey, driver! Stop the carriage and hand over your money and women, and we might just spare your life! Otherwise..." one of the bandits yelled, feeling bold with so many of his comrades around him.

But in the next instant, a flash of white light streaked past, and his head exploded.

Blood splattered across the faces of the surrounding bandits, stunning them all into silence.

Before the corpse could even hit the ground, countless streaks of white light erupted from the carriage, flying straight toward everyone.

POP! POP! POP!

The bandits’ heads shattered one after another, as if they were made of fragile porcelain.

Some tried to run, but how could they outrun the high-speed stones? Many were struck down the instant they turned, their heads obliterated by tremendous force.

In the blink of an eye, every last bandit on the road was dead.

Meanwhile, Wu Liangchen halted the carriage and leaped into the village. His hands never stopped moving as he began to reap the lives of the bandits inside.

The bandits, who had been reveling in their slaughter and arson just moments ago, now felt as if they had been plunged into an icy cellar. They had no idea who this god of slaughter who’d appeared from nowhere was, or why he was killing them without a single word.

"We’re men of Cyan Cloud Mountain! You—" A bandit tried to use his faction’s name to scare the attacker off, but before he could finish, a stone obliterated half of his skull.

Some of the more clever bandits, seeing how bad the situation was, immediately hid inside the farmhouses, thinking the walls would protect them from the deadly stones.

But with Wu Liangchen’s keen perception, how could the flimsy walls of these farmhouses possibly block his senses?

So, no matter what corner a bandit tried to hide in, a stone would simply punch through the wall and blast them to death.

Meanwhile, the villagers who had just been brutalized and robbed could only stare, dumbfounded.

Just moments before, their desperate pleas to heaven and earth had gone unanswered. They could only watch helplessly as their homes were destroyed, their possessions stolen, and their wives and daughters defiled.

Although some spirited men had risen up in defiance, how could farmers accustomed to holding hoes be a match for bandits armed with swords and spears?

After many of them were cut down, the survivors could only watch in despair and furious grief.

But who could have expected that in the blink of an eye, the tables would be so completely turned?

A young man, so handsome it was almost absurd, seemed to have descended from the heavens and begun, in turn, to reap the lives of the bandits.

And the same bandits who had been swaggering about moments ago were now scrambling like terrified dogs, their desperate attempts to survive a pathetic sight to behold.

As another bandit—half his torso pulverized by a stone—collapsed to the ground, barely breathing, a red-eyed villager let out a furious roar. He pounced on the fallen man, sank his teeth into the bandit’s throat, and began to tear at it like a wild beast.

This was the very bandit who had just stolen his life’s savings before violating his fifteen-year-old daughter right in front of his eyes.

He had tried to fight back then, but several burly bandits had pinned him to the ground, leaving him unable to move. He could only watch the entire thing, his eyes wide with a rage so intense it felt like his sockets would split.

Now, finally given a chance for revenge, the slender farmer’s suppressed fury erupted.

His actions jolted the other survivors. With eyes gone crimson, they snatched up the dropped swords, spears, and clubs from the ground. They fell upon the bandits who had been fortunate enough to avoid a fatal blow but were still left breathing, and hacked them into a bloody pulp.

It was at this moment that a final, piercing scream from a woman echoed out from a large courtyard in the center of the village. A burly, bare-chested man then slowly walked out of the house.

His body was covered in tattoos of dragons and phoenixes, and his skin was dark and gleaming, like burnished steel. Combined with his triangular eyes and hooked nose, one glance was enough to know he was not a man to be trifled with.

He was the captain of this bandit squad and one of Seventh Village Chief Cong Bo’s most capable generals: Zhou Zhi, also known as the "Ironclad Ghost."

He frowned and cursed, "Dammit, what the hell are you little shits howling for? You’re ruining all the fun for me."