Chapter 119: The Sloppy Man

At this stage, NPCs with internal energy at the Mysterious Realm level are already extremely rare and invincible in “Jianghu.” They possess excellent defensive skills, light-footedness, top-tier martial arts, secret techniques, and fine weapons and equipment. With their unique sets of attack systems, they are even more formidable due to their rarity.

So…
When encountering an NPC at the Mysterious Realm level, even players skilled in advanced martial arts would feel anxious and could only flee—hence the scene where over forty people were chased by a band of bandits earlier.

But not Happy!
After three years of training, the masters he had faced were all strong enough to kill NPCs at the Life and Death Realm in just a few moves. Even against NPCs at the Liberation Realm, they could still win easily. Although NPCs at the Mysterious Realm seemed powerful, for Happy, as long as he didn’t make silly mistakes, it wasn’t difficult to defeat them with his own skills at the Fate Realm level.

However…
The bandit leader’s axe techniques were indeed fierce and domineering. With each series of axe strikes, the air was filled with sharp axe-like edges—even more intense than Hualang Yin’s sword slashes! The continuous attacks forced Happy to retreat again, constantly dodging their blows.

Though his moves were fierce, their speed wasn’t very high.
But for such fast-paced axe attacks, the footwork might not be precise enough.
Thus, despite being pressured by the bandit leader, Happy remained calm, maintaining a steady mindset and focusing on defense for now.

Although the process seemed simple and effortless for Happy, it was the result of three years of skill refinement. Every time the bandit leader moved or showed a certain aura or sharpness in his footwork, it would automatically alert Happy to possible attack patterns, allowing him to defend accordingly.

His advanced martial arts were fierce and deadly.
In just two minutes,
the two had exchanged over a hundred blows…
Yet there wasn’t a single direct confrontation. Each time, the bandit leader’s attacks were weakened significantly by Happy’s clever “deflection” and “guidance” techniques, or he simply avoided them.

As time passed, although the bandit leader’s attacks remained fierce, they no longer carried their earlier intensity. He kept using the same moves, and failing to defeat his opponent quickly made him impatient.
Meanwhile, as the bandit leader’s momentum faded, Happy gradually broke free from the overwhelming pressure. Glancing around, he saw several unharmed bandits approaching from afar. Immediately, he became alert, changing his previously defensive sword stance. His sword slashes grew sharper as he moved closer, his left hand forming a fist to slam heavily into the bandit leader’s chin.

Although the lethality of the Black Tiger Fist technique is far inferior to that of superior martial arts, it can still cause severe damage when hitting vulnerable parts of the body.
“Die!!”
The bandit leader roared in pain, swung his axe fiercely, forcing Happy to retreat several meters. In his fury, his aura became once again astonishingly powerful.
But…
Though his aura grew stronger in his rage, his flaws became even more apparent.
Happy had been waiting for this opportunity for a long time. Avoiding one axe strike, at the moment the second axe came rushing in, he flashed his blade downward with even greater speed, hitting the opponent’s slightly weakened axe head. The immense force drove inertia, causing the bandit leader to lose his balance instantly.
His face turned pale; seemingly realizing something from the sudden sound, he looked up in panic. A blue blade light, as if coming from beyond the heavens, froze his memory in that instant!
The purplish-red giant axe crashed to the ground.
…
“Hm?”
About a mile away from the pavilion, in the woods under the scorching sun, a black, elegant figure suddenly stopped mid-flight after emitting a soft sound.
The tree branches swayed slightly as the figure landed steadily on the top of a tall tree. From above, gazing toward the road to the east, it was the middle-aged, disheveled man who had left the pavilion early. Holding a brocade box, he cast a puzzled look into the distance.
In his other hand, he held a delicate map. Just a minute earlier, the map clearly showed the location and movement speed of another brocade box, which was clearly chasing in his direction. But just now, the red dot suddenly stopped…
He waited for several minutes in place. The red dot on the map remained motionless, as if trapped by something.
“Strange.”
A hint of confusion appeared on the disheveled man’s face. His eyes flickered as he murmured, “Logically, apart from Hei Lu himself, none of those who attacked the Thirteen Rod Monks could withstand an NPC at the Mysterious Realm level. And since the brocade box here has already been taken, they can’t possibly keep fighting desperately… After stopping for so long, could something new have happened?”
Unreasonably, the image of that blue figure seen in the pavilion flashed through his mind…
Was it him?
No way!
Frowning, the disheveled man hesitated on the tree branch for a while, but ultimately, his boundless curiosity overcame his sense of prudence. With a “whoosh,” he rushed toward the road he had come from like a wild goose or an arrow.
The middle-aged man’s lightness of footwork had reached an astonishing level, his speed terrifyingly fast—far surpassing both Happy and the bandit leader at the Mysterious Realm.

It swept seven or eight meters before floating lightly toward the distant official road. During that time, the disheveled man kept checking the map in his hand. The red dot representing the ornate box remained motionless. His curiosity grew even stronger, so he put away the map and rushed toward the location of the pavilion! At lightning speed, in less than half a minute, the middle-aged man in ragged clothes appeared not far from the pavilion, holding the ornate box comically in his arms. Seeing the unattended horses outside the pavilion and the corpses still scattered on the ground, his astonishment deepened. His gaze then shifted to the only person standing and moving in the area—a man in black. “…” The disheveled man had sharp eyes and quickly spotted more bandit corpses in the vicinity, including that of the powerful expert from the Mysterious Realm who had killed dozens of people. On the battlefield, there were only the corpses of the bandits! All around, there was only that calm, composed man in black with a mask… Seeing this, even the slow-witted middle-aged man understood that all the bandits had been killed by the man in black. He paled at this astonishing discovery. In the martial world, there were reports of killing NPCs from the Mysterious Realm, but it was the first time to see someone single-handedly take down someone from that realm… How terrifying must his strength be? The middle-aged man glanced at the man in black with great wariness and carefully tightened hold of the ornate box, stepping back slowly, looking as if he were in danger. “…” He was both happy and surprised by the arrival of the middle-aged man, but now, seeing his cowardly behavior, he felt deep helplessness. He quickly gathered the loot from the bandits and a few horse tokens, gave the disheveled man a sharp look, and then headed slowly in the direction of Shaoshi Mountain.