Chapter 80: No Mercy for the Wicked

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In truth, everyone present heard Fang Xu's orders to Old Wu with perfect clarity. Even the Second Chief, tied to the pillar behind them, stared at Fang Xu as if he had seen a ghost, scarcely able to believe his own ears.

“Young Master… Young Master, are you really not going to spare us?” the Second Chief mustered his courage to ask, for his life now hung in the balance.

He could not help but struggle for survival, but Fang Xu only turned to him with icy eyes, then broke into a brilliant smile.

At the sight of Fang Xu’s radiant smile, the Second Chief could not help but breathe a sigh of relief.

“Of course!” Yet before the Second Chief could savor his relief, Fang Xu’s cold voice shattered his composure entirely.

“You truly intend to kill us? Aren’t you afraid the authorities will come after you?” Now convinced Fang Xu harbored murderous intent, the Second Chief began to threaten him.

But he seemed to forget Fang Xu had already said he would seek out the authorities himself. Would invoking the law now intimidate Fang Xu? Anyone could see that was impossible.

“Oh? Is that so?” Fang Xu feigned surprise as he looked at the Second Chief, who mistook this for fear.

“Let us go now and it’s not too late, otherwise… Wait! What are you doing? Don't come any closer!” The Second Chief, still gloating, suddenly saw Fang Xu draw the embroidered Spring Blade from the ground and walk toward him.

“This young master has always intended to meet these so-called officials—why would I be afraid? To tell you the truth, the number of corrupt officials and scoundrels I’ve slain along the way is beyond counting. Do you know what they call me?” Fang Xu stood before the Second Chief with a smile.

He raised the blade and traced it lightly across the Second Chief’s cheek, blood welling in its wake.

“They call me the Living King of Hell. Do you think the King of Hell fears such things?” Before the Second Chief could react, Fang Xu’s blade fell.

Pitifully, in his final moments, the Second Chief could remember only those three words: Living King of Hell.

These bandits always fancied themselves nightmares to the common folk, the arbiters of their lives and deaths, the kings of hell. Yet when faced with Fang Xu, the true Living King of Hell, his wrath was far beyond anything they could withstand.

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Seeing their Chief and Second Chief both beheaded by Fang Xu, many of the bandits could not help but curse aloud, their voices filled with nothing but insults, calling Fang Xu a devil.

But hearing this, Fang Xu only laughed.

“A devil, am I? What now—are you afraid? Were those girls you defiled not afraid? Were the innocent villagers you slaughtered not afraid? Or did you consider any of this before you committed your crimes?” Fang Xu roared at the bandits bound on the ground.

His voice tore through the night sky, shaking the bandits to their core. For a moment, Fang Xu wondered if he had taken on the demeanor of a wrathful emperor from another life.

But now, what he needed most was to vent the fury burning within him. He remembered the villagers’ desperate pleas, and the wretched, barely human girls Old Wu and the others had rescued from the dungeons.

All of this had thoroughly ignited the gunpowder keg of Fang Xu’s rage.

He wanted only to see these men pay the price they owed, for every deed must bear its consequence—was that not so?

With that thought, Fang Xu tossed the embroidered Spring Blade to the dazed Old Wu, then picked up a heavy broadsword from the ground, uncertain which bandit it had belonged to.

As the broadsword scraped along the earth, the bandits lying there stared wide-eyed at Fang Xu advancing toward them.

Each one strained desperately to move, but Fang Xu’s steps easily outpaced their efforts to escape.

And where could they flee, after all? Fang Xu’s lips curled into a smile as he raised the broadsword.

In the moonlight, the blade seemed to emit a faint, chilling shimmer.

With a sickening crack, the weight of the sword cleaved a bandit in two at the waist. As his torso and legs parted, the girls—wretched and numb, standing nearby—suddenly showed the first traces of a smile.

Old Wu and the others saw this, and their own anger surged within them.

Yes—what were they fighting for? If their own children or wives had suffered such torment, what would they have done?

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Such thoughts surfaced in everyone’s mind as Fang Xu moved through the bandits like a man possessed.

His blade rose and fell with deadly precision, and soon he had grown accustomed to the broadsword’s weight and swing.

One by one, the bandits were felled as easily as vegetables on a chopping block. Where once Fang Xu’s clothes were the azure and white of a scholar, now he looked every inch a demon risen from hell.

But Fang Xu did not care. If becoming a demon meant burning all evil from this world, why should he not embrace it?

Yet he had overestimated his own strength. After slaying only a few dozen bandits, his energy was spent, and hundreds more remained awaiting his blade.

Those still alive now stared at Fang Xu with terror, as if watching a devil himself, and wailed in despair.

The bandits’ lair rang with the shrieks and howls of the damned, sending the villagers below clutching their meager bedding in fright.

It was plain the bandits had left an indelible scar upon these people.

Though Fang Xu’s strength was nearly gone, Old Wu and his men were not yet spent—they joined in the work of reaping the bandits’ lives.

Leaning heavily on the broadsword for support, Fang Xu barely kept himself from collapsing.

At that moment, he noticed the ragged, barely human girls behind him, watching with trembling excitement.

“Old Wu! Why the hell haven’t you armed these ladies?” Fang Xu shouted toward Old Wu, who was steadily dispatching more of the bandits.