As soon as the kusarigama was swung out, Fuma Kotaro was invaded with an abrupt sense of danger. It was his fearlessness, immense speed and naturally-gifted physical constituent that allowed him to thrive. The most eye-catching quality of his was undoubtedly his crazy speed. The effort placed on technique acquisition would be rewarded with breakthroughs but speed was something no one else could replicate. Fuma Kotaro was especially proud of it. However, now that he was faced with Xia Lei himself, he came to a realization of what true speed really was!

Every shift of Xia Lei’s muscles were hard to predict. Fuma Kotaro could only reflectively take a few steps back with every attack. At that split moment, a sharp pain throbbed from within his right grip over the kusarigama. He noticed that he could no longer hold his weapon!

The iron chains and its blades fell onto the ground with a clink, allowing Fuma Kotaro to escape Xia Lei’s attack. Sadly, the effect was only temporary. Before he could regain his balance, Xia Lei had lunged forward with a speed so fast that Fuma Kotaro could not dodge in time!

Their shoulders grazed against each other. Fuma Kotaro’s left wrist suffered a slash. Blood began to pool out of his wrists, dyeing his pants red instantly.

It was just a brief exchange and the self-proclaimed strongest warrior had already lost his means to fight. This was a blatant mockery, a blatant humiliation!

A few seconds earlier, Fuma Kotaro felt grateful that Xia Lei had stupidly not chosen to draw his gun. It was now that he realized that the man was far from foolish. Xia Lei was not taking him seriously, to begin with. I can take you out with a mere dagger in seconds!

The lightning-fast mass came to an abrupt halt and Xia Lei whipped around to stare at Fuma Kotaro coldly.

Fuma Kotaro attempted to move his wrists. To his dismay, none of them was adhering to his will. He stared at Xia Lei with blown-out pupils. He then trained his gaze down to the blood-stained military dagger in his grip. Did he call Xia Lei a coward? Damn, now it certainly felt like he was talking about himself!

“So this is Japanese ninjutsu? Who trained you? Why do you suck so bad?” Xia Lei approached Fuma Kotaro at a leisure pace, a taunting smirk plastered across his lips.

“AAAAAAHHHHH!” Fuma Kotaro roared a battle cry and lunged forward. He sprinted two steps and jumped, his right leg angled to ram Xia Lei over.

Fuma Kotaro was at least two hundred kilograms heavy. The weight he threw out was packed with a terrifying impact. If his kick had landed on someone’s chest, it was most likely going to fracture all their ribs. They’d suffer from a pair of punctured lungs and heart.

Surprisingly, Xia Lei did not move away nor avoid the incoming attack despite the obvious risks. He let Fuma Kotaro counterattack with his incredibly muscular right leg.

Just as the kick was about to make contact with Xia Lei’s chest, Xia Lei swiftly leaned back. The momentum of Fuma Kotaro’s kick allowed him to slide over the top of Xia Lei’s chest and dragged the sole of his feet towards his face. In that split second, the military dagger in Xia Lei’s right grip made a clean slit along Kotaro’s hamstring.

Blood escaped from the fresh opening that spanned from his right ankle. It was only then that Xia Lei’s body was soiled with Fuma Kotaro’s blood.

“AAAAHHHHH!” Fuma Kotaro let out a piercing screech. The booming murderous intent in his voice was long gone, making him sound more like a pained beast in agony.

Losing balance, Fuma Kotaro immediately lost his footing as soon as his feet touched the ground. He fell over with a loud thud. The man tried his hardest to stand up but all efforts were in vain. He could no longer move his arms and one of his legs with ease. As Xia Lei began to pace over, Fuma Kotaro could only stare at him with trembling pupils as the fear and despair seeped into his soul. He felt the burning hatred bubbling at the pit of his stomach but the resentment no longer bore any meaning.

Xia Lei walked over and raised his dagger. With one swift slash, Fuma Kotaro’s left hamstring was gone too. Even if he decided to not kill Fuma Kotaro, the man was bound to be handicapped for life.

“Is there anything else you wanna say?” Xia Lei asked monotonously. “Because I’m about to cut your tongue off. I’m a man of my words.”

“Ptui!” Fuma Kotaro spat a mouthful of bloodied saliva at him. “Chinese pig!”

The moment his sentence fell, Xia Lei shoved his dagger into Fuma Kotaro’s jaw and twisted hard. The fountain of blood that immediately gushed out was a gruesome sight. Withdrawing his dagger, another gush of blood pushed Fuma Kotaro’s detached tongue out of his jaw.

“Gurgle..” Fuma Kotaro willed to curse the hell out of everyone but he could no longer make another sound. The only noise produced out of his throat were vague whines.

“I must say, you’re pretty courageous for not even begging for mercy once. So before I cut your dick off, I’ll slit your throat right away so you’ll enjoy a faster death, okay? Are you ready?” Xia Lei moved his dagger to the area between Fuma Kotaro’s thighs.

To torment then kill was what Xia Lei was obviously trying to pull. No matter how you looked at it, the stunt he was pulling was downright cruelty. Despite that, the man was contrastingly well-mannered and one could even say sophisticated when inflicting extreme pain. It gave off an eerie air.

Fuma Kotaro’s breathing began to pick up. He had the violent urge to wiggle backwards but the momentary pause allowed Xia Lei to drive his military dagger harshly between his thighs. Xia Lei then drove the blade sideways.

“MMPH!GAAAAAAHHHH!” Fuma Kotaro was in unprecedented agony.

Xia Lei whipped his right arm and the impeccably sharpened military dagger went across Fuma Kotaro’s oesophagus. The blood spurting out of Fuma Kotaro’s severed carotid artery was like a fountain made of blood. It was almost as high as two metres!

For someone who was just second only to Yagyu Yuichi in terms of prestige among the Japanese samurais of the current generation, his demise was absolute humiliation.

Xia Lei picked up the Gust assault rifle and XL2500 sniper rifle on the ground and diverted his attention to the side. One second later, he quickly climbed up a red oak tree right beside him.

The American red oak tree was the world’s tallest tree. Some thousand-year-old trees were able to reach heights of more than one hundred and thirty metres tall. While this tree Xia Lei was climbing was not the tallest, it still stood at a relatively impressive eighty metres. It felt like he was reaching the skies above.

Xia Lei decided to stop twenty metres shy of the oak’s canopy because he deemed it unnecessary. He balanced himself on one of the sturdy branches at fifty metres of height. The position he was at was equivalent to setting up a snipping ground atop a tall building. He could see everything going on clearly a few kilometres away!

It didn’t take long for him to zero in on his true target. Hattori Mei.

In a distance away, Hattori Mei was frantically diving deeper into the woods with a pistol in her grip. The clothes that covered her body were long tattered and torn by low-lying branches and thorny vegetation. A good span of her pale delicate skin was exposed to mother nature. Among all the women he had encountered so far, Hattori Mei’s skin was the most delicate of them all. How could her pampered fragile skin withstand the damage inflicted by her surroundings?

Xia Lei’s brain provided him with a set of data. Target distance: 1543 m, Wind speed: 5 m/s, Wind level: Level 3, Relative humidity: 60%. As soon as the numbers had manifested, Xia Lei raised his XL2500 sniper rifle. Aiming it at Hattori Mei’s exposed back, Xia Lei’s finger hovered over the trigger in anticipation of the right time to shoot. However, it was at that split second that Hattori Mei was immediately shielded by a gigantic red oak tree. He waited another five seconds and yet she failed to reappear.

The man scowled. This was an inevitable flaw that accompanied sniper rifle usages in the forest. Sure, he could easily take out any given target within one kilometre and five hundred something radius but in the case of a densely vegetated forest, trees had proven to be a limitation. Each was visual and physical obstacles that tampered with the shooting trajectory. It was going to be difficult for him to send Hattori Mei to hell in a setting like this. Bullets would require a little bit over one second to fly over and Hattori Mei could easily count the intervals to cross into another tree. The trees would definitely serve her well as a loyal hiding spot.

“You’re not going to run from this,” Xia Lei hissed internally. He put his sniper rifle away and prepared to descend to the ground. He needed to hunt Hattori Mei down.

Bang!

A booming gunshot echoed from the hill opposite him in all of a sudden, accompanied by a woman’s feral roar. “This is where you die!”

Bang bang bang…

The rain of bullets that followed after was heavy.

Xia Lei quickly peered into that direction, only to find Anjum Khan getting cornered by some woman to the back of a boulder. Judging by the situation, Anjum Khan seemed to have exhausted his bullets and was tossed into an awkward and risky position. Anjum Khan had the best marksmanship among the Chinese Zodiac Battle Team members but the current battlefield had posed too many disadvantages for him. Anjum Khan had burnt through more bullets than usual to even achieve his normal performance. From the looks of it, the female ninja was evidently skilful at utilizing her surroundings. It was a smart decision on her part to save her firepower and show herself right after Anjum Khan was out of ammo. She had successfully suppressed all possibility for Anjum Khan to counterattack.

Alongside her was another Japanese samurai with an MK17 assault rifle. Flanked by her relentless shooting, the man began charging towards Anjum Khan. There were only twenty metres between them. With his speed, the man would only require five seconds to jump over the boulder and take Anjum Khan out. The unwavering attacks from the female ninja had rendered Anjum Khan unaware of the approaching assault.

Xia Lei immediately raised his XL2500 sniper rifle and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

On the other side of the woods, the Japanese female ninja, Hatano Naoka, abruptly ceased fire. She slumped towards the ground at the ring of the gunshot. There was now a fist-sized hole on her spine.

This abrupt noise caused the dashing Japanese samurai to turn around in surprise.

Just like that, a bullet whistled over and exited his skull clean. It was unfortunate that his death would remain a mystery to himself. However, he was not the only one struck with that fate. Hatano Naoka too had died without understanding why.

Anjum Khan carefully peeked his head out from behind the rock, catching glimpses of a motionless Hatano Naoka and Japanese samurai on the ground. He was stunned but immediately realized what must’ve gone on. Anjum Khan quickly flashed a thumbs up in the opposite direction.

The battle on the other end too had reached its conclusion.

Despite that, Xia Lei did not put his gun away. His eyes fell on his initial hiding spot, where Tsukino Kyoko had eagerly played a game of ‘catching snake’ yesterday night. It didn’t take much for him to notice Tsukino Kyoko and an older man in the middle of a small clearing amidst the trees. Based on what Tsukino Kyoko had told him, Xia Lei quickly deduced the older man’s identity. That must be her master, Yagyu Yuichi!

Tsukino Kyoko was rigid and still, Yagyu Yuichi too was practically stationary. Xia Lei wondered how long they had been in this state. It felt almost as if they had been in an intense staring contest since the night before.

One press of a finger against the trigger would easily solve the issue. But as he raised his gun, Xia Lei was instantly reminded of what Tsukino Kyoko had whispered to him last night.

Hours earlier, Tsukino Kyoko was nestled snugly against his broad chest. The moonlight was pale but somehow, Tsukino Kyoko’s radiant skin had looked even paler than it was capable of. She began to draw circles idly atop his skin. The lull of her voice was gentle. “Boss, my master will definitely come for me tomorrow. He will know how to find me tomorrow too. Please do not interfere with our duel. Just let him and I deal this out according to Iga-ryu traditions.”

“But… If you can’t defeat him, he’ll kill you right off the bat. Are you seriously asking me to watch you die?” questioned Xia Lei.

The female ninja adjusted her neck. “Death does not scare me. What I’m most afraid of is if you help me, I will never be able to step out of his shadow. So, please… Promise me this. This has to do with my honour as a warrior and my path as a samurai. No matter what happens tomorrow, promise me you won’t come in between us, okay?”

Xia Lei nodded.

The brief memory flashed across Xia Lei’s mind in that split second, prompting him to put down his XL2500 sniper rifle.

To refuse help and place herself in a life-threatening position sounded like an idiotic decision. However, one must accept the fact that people like that do exist alongside us and Tsukino Kyoko was one of them. She had chosen to betray her own country and her people. She had even made the hard decision to betray her master. Suffering in silence was all she did this entire time and it was through the traditional Iga-ryu way that she’d be free from this torment!

Xia Lei understood where she was coming from and hence he would support her till the end.

He peeled his eyes away and descended the tree. Thus, the hunt for Hattori Mei had begun.