Chapter 1

In a remote jungle of Da Xuan Country, nestled between the Chu State and Whitewater City, a thin and weak figure leaned against a thick tree trunk, both his legs apart in a relaxed manner.

Shockingly, the figure belonged to a 13 or 14 year old teenager.

Aside from his unusually pale face, the boy had fairly common facial features. His clothes were loose fitting and by his side a bright shining steel sword was carelessly thrown.

The sword, although shiny, was also stained with spots of dried black blood.

A strip of cloth was wrapped multiple times around the teenager’s shoulder forming a makeshift tourniquet, even though it was tight fresh blood still leaked out.

Closing his eyes, the young man became motionless against the trunk of the tree as if he was taking a nap.

Suddenly, a slight “Shaa…shaa…” noise came from within the jungle. Something was rapidly approaching the young man.

The young man opened his eyes and jumped up while his toe instinctively flicked to the side.

“Bang!”

The steel sword shot up and rested itself snugly within the young man’s palm.

The young man looked towards the direction of the sound and without hesitation leapt in the other direction. With a few steps, he disappeared within the forest.

After a while, a group of black-armored warriors came out from the forest in a tight battle formation.

They were only 20 warriors, but everyone in the group was tall and sturdy, with looks that matched those of seasoned veterans. It was clear that they were soldiers who were used to bloodshed and the like.

They came out from the side of the forest. With a low grunt from one of them, all 20 of them stopped and stood, perfectly straight, at the spot.

At the same time, one of the young warriors stepped forward hastily and squatted down in front of where the young once was. Using his hands. he quickly dug through the teen’s resting place before soon standing up.

“Wang General, the fugitive has only recently fled. If we were to leave now, we might be able to catch him.” The warrior reported to the only member within the group that was not wearing a black helmet and was instead showing off his bald head.

While the warriors were relatively tall, compared to this two meter giant next to them, they were shorter by quite a bit. They were like children standing in front of an adult.

“Hmph, there is no need to chase him; we’ve already secured the surrounding cities. No matter how cunning this brat is, he won’t be able to escape. To that side, General Situ has already been waiting for a long time, all we have to do is to slowly make our way over to him.” The giant snorted, staring in the direction the young man escaped to.

“Sir, this is a huge criminal that the state demanded be apprehended. If we capture him, we will have accomplished something great. Are we really going to give our prize away to General Situ?” An armored warrior asked blankly after hesitating for a while.

“Something great?? No matter. Whether General Situ gets our prize or not will depend on if he has the capability required to capture the fugitive. Regardless, let’s slow down a bit so that we might be able to catch them both tired.” The giant wiped his bald head, speaking emotionlessly.

“Sir, what do you mean by that? General Situ has far more people than we do, even if that young man knows a few skills, how would it be possible for him to stand against General Situ?” Astounded, the young soldier stared at his commanding officer.

“Yu Xin, you’ve been by my side for quite some time now, and I can tell that you are quite strong. However, if you were wanted by the government, what is the most you would be able to face and still be able to get away safely?” The gigantic man didn’t answer the young soldier directly, instead he replied with a deep question himself.

TL: Yu Xin is not an important name – no need to remember it.

“If I were fighting general detectives, then I could handle 7 or 8 of them without a problem. But if the numbers got over 10, then I would start having problems.” The young soldier wasn’t sure where his superior was going with his question but he had answered regardless.

”7 or 8! Hah. Ever since the arrest warrant for this kid was issued, the number of general detectives killed while trying to capture him has already surpassed that paltry sum tenfold!” The giant roared with laughter, coldly explaining why he had asked his original question.

“The general detectives have been trained by specialists, and even though they cant compare to us Black Tiger Guard, they definitely aren’t as weak as the average person!” The young soldier’s face had a look of disbelief, he couldn’t understand how the youngster was that strong.

“This youth, he has escaped from Savage Island, which in of itself is no small feat. The island was originally designed as a prison for the most diabolical of people; each prisoner locked away there possesses great talent and power. Never should they be underestimated.” The giant stated coldly.

“What, he escaped from Savage Island!?”

The young soldier sucked in a breath, and suddenly another thought came to him. Hastily, he asked,

“Sir, I’ve heard that Savage Island sank overnight. But didn’t they say that all of the prisoners sank with the island? The infamous Dead Sea surrounds it; a special Ebony Boat is required to traverse the waters: Nothing else is capable of staying afloat.”

“I’m not too sure of that myself, but other than that young man, at least 10 others escaped from the Dead Sea. If it weren’t for the fact that we accidentally found one of escapee and interrogated him for information, I’m afraid that the Courts would not have known about this at all; consequently, the Black Tiger Guard would not have been sent to patrol the place either. No matter though, that young man we have to capture is the weakest criminal that escaped. Although he set up false trails and set us back half a month, all we need to do now is to head straight and we’ll find him and once we do, he’s as good as dead.” Shaking his head, the giant slapped the back of his black spear.

“Of course, who doesn’t know that Sir is ranked within top 100 in the entire state?” The young soldier praised as his respect for the taller soldier floated onto his face.

“Stop flattering me! We should get going!” Waving his fanlike hand, the giant commanded rather bluntly for the soldiers to move out.

Saluting, the young soldier returned to his spot amongst the others once more.

Immediately the soldiers began return to formation, each soldier quickly disappeared into the forest.

One cup of tea later, the soldiers left the jungle and entered into a small but spacious meadow. The sight that greeted left all of them stunned.

TL: Cup of tea later = time it takes for tea to cool/finish infusing

The meadow, that was originally lush green, blooming with plant life, was dyed crimson!

In the middle of all the blood, the corpses of similarly black armored soldiers were scattered across the ground.

On each of their faces a horrified expression remained, as if they had seen a truly dreadful sight before they died.

Each corpse had a thumb sized hole on their throat with blood still pouring out.

“There are 30 corpses altogether here, all of them under General Situ’s command. It would seem that no one was spared, however General Situ’s body is not amongst the pile here.”

The young soldier named Yu Xin reported with a pale and disturbed face after he quickly moved towards and examined the corpses.

The giant’s face dropped as he listened to the report. With a glance to the other side of the meadow, something had caught his eye. He quickly went over.

The other soldiers followed him without hesitation but they were much more cautious than before and were on guard.

The giant quickly thundered to the tree and after looking down, his face twisted in anger and grief.

There was a tree there and under it was the withered body of a black armored soldier with a steel sword piercing through his throat, pinning him to the tree.

Near the tree, a long but pale silver blade was stabbed into the ground.

The rigid hands of the middle aged man grasped at the sword’s blade. Every single finger bore multiple cuts and his eyes stared straight ahead even though his breath had ceased long ago.

……

Liu Ming was jumping through the forest quickly with his entire body feeling sore, even the spoils of his battle, another silver blade, began to feel heavier in his hand.

Although he had trained himself in swordsmanship for 5-6 years, and thus was able to kill all of the warriors that were waiting for him, the ferocity of the warriors was beyond his expectations.

Even after he used a hit and run tactic to kill all of the warriors, the leader of the warriors kept on pursuing him without fear for his own life.

This forced him to use a secret technique he learned on Savage Island, one that left a burned his potential and reopened his old wound while he could barely kill that leader.

TL: Yes burning his potential (aka he’d be less able/agile for another few days)

Using something like that overworked his still adolescent body; he couldn’t last much longer at this rate.

When Liu Ming thought about the effects, he couldn’t help but take a glance at his shoulder.

The layered cloth strips wrapping shoulder had been soaked with blood and at the same time, waves of pain kept on pulsing from his arm.

Even with his stubborn personality, enduring the burning after effects was simply too much.

Black Tiger Warriors deserved their title as Da Xuan’s elites; they were far superior to the normal government detectives that had gone after him.

The him right now could only hope that the slaughter from before made the other Black Tiger Warriors wary of him; too scared to pursue him closely.

Once one or two days passed, the ‘Air Closure Technique’ after effects would also wear off and he could jump into a nearby river to escape.

Even though Liu Ming wasn’t too old, he had learnt quite a few rare and non-mainstream techniques.

TL: Non-mainstream = not popular/not extremely useful in a lot of circumstances

If he hadn’t, even with someone protecting him on Savage Island, he wouldn’t have been able to survive there for seven to eight years as a child.

As Liu Ming thought back, a scarred face of a man floated before his eyes. Even though his demeanour was quite ferocious, when Liu Ying saw it his heart felt warm.

Suddenly Liu Ming’s face turned dark and his body that was speeding forward suddenly twisted itself to shift to the left and curled into a ball during the process.

At the same, “shou shou” sounds rang ahead of him.

A dozen half a foot long crossbow bolts came shooting out in front of him, whizzing out of the forest and with a couple of flashes, barely passed by the young man and pierced into a grey white tree behind him.

The bolts were coldly shining under the sun: it was obvious that they were made of high grade steel. Most of the bolts were stuck to the tree and were quivering slightly.

“Who is it?”

The young man took a tumble into a nearby bush and pressed his silver blade in front of him as he coldly called out.

“Pretty good. No wonder you were able to live for so long under the pursuit of Black Tiger Warriors. But now that you’ve met us two, prepare to die.” A sharp feminine voice came from ahead and two shadows, one of a man and the other of a woman, flickered out from a tree ahead of the young man.

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