I Can See Your Combat Power

: : Barbarian Forest

Within the secluded forest of Red Cloud Mountain’s tail peak, there were several disorderly camps. Food was clearly scarce, but smoke wafted from cooking fires in different directions.

“Is it stewed yet?” A man asked the woman standing right in front of the pot.

“It’s about done. I’ll bring it over to you now,” the middle-aged woman replied, eyeing the meat soup in the pot carefully and swallowing nervously.

The man watched as the frail woman ladled the soup out of the pot; her hand holding the bowl was all skin and bones.

“You eat first,” said the woman, placing the bowl of soup before him.

Saying nothing, the man took a gulp directly from the bowl. He then put down the bowl, picked up a piece of meat, and shoved it into his mouth as the woman watched him.

In a short while, half of the meat soup was gone.

The wife swallowed hard. Then she, too, picked up her chopsticks.

All the meat soup was finished. The meat was gone too. All that was left was a

pile of broken bones.

The bones were smashed by the husband with the power of his palm. But at this moment, she couldn’t tell which were the skull bones and which were the

tail bones.

The woman glanced at the man, patted her still-unfilled stomach, and put the bowl aside.

“Tomorrow let’s trade in Chaor too,” said her husband.

The woman nodded, smacking her lips, lost in thought.

“Headman, what’s the meaning of this, cough, cough, cough.” The old man s cough worsened and he wobbled like a candle in the wind, his face filled with grievance, “We are all good people, absolutely incapable of committing cannibalism, please see through our innocence, Headman!”

Tang Luo watched the old man, still lost in his performance, then glanced at the others, all wearing wronged expressions on their faces, and chuckled softly, “Really?”

“Yes, Headman!” a man missing his left arm, hugging a child, protested loudly, “Although there are no bandits in the mountains now, children still go missing often. Even when we come to the assembly, I dare not leave my child at home, I always keep them with me.”

After speaking, the man gave a dirty face of the child a big kiss, as if to prove his love, “How can a man like me, who loves his children so much, eat children? Please know the truth, Headman!!”

“Yes, my husband loves his eldest son till it hurts, how can he eat children?” A middle-aged woman beside the man implored Tang Luo, “Please know the truth, Headman.”

Tang Luo gave the man and woman a cold glance, and asked sternly, “When did

I say that you ate children?”

As if struck by bone-chilling ice, the faces of the man and woman pleading just a moment ago froze. The hand that held the child suddenly tightened, and the child cried out in pain. The man stood there blankly.

Tang Luo had always thought that the idiom ‘what is bred in the bone will come out in the flesh’ was nonsense. He had met plenty of beautiful people who were thoroughly despicable inside, and a few ugly ones who had kind hearts. Property © of NôvelDrama.Org.

Using someone’s looks to measure their morality is absolutely foolish. Yet looking at this group of cripples before him, Tang Luo felt that their ugliness really did reflect their inner characters.

The man who had claimed to love his child so severely just now, actually threw the child at Tang Luo and fled like the wind. The thin woman also sprinted off on her long legs, as if her frailty and grief from before was only an illusion.

The shadow of the Great Mighty Dragon gently caught the child, dissipating the momentum. Two primordial energy arrows shot out – one passed through the man’s skull while the other pierced the woman’s chest and abdomen. The two corpses fell to the ground, deathly silent, causing an uproar among the remaining cripples.

Tang Luo handed the child, caught by the dragon’s shadow, to Sun Jinfang, whose face was pale with shock. Then turned back to the group, speaking calmly, “Now I ask again, those who have not eaten human flesh, step forward.”

The elderly man who had been coughing heavily just now straightened up and cast aside his crutches. He spoke in a cold and stern voice, “Is it not too cruel for you to take two lives just because of a slip of the tongue?”

“Cruel?” Tang Luo sneered, staring at the old man who was no longer pretending, “I am afraid I wasn’t cruel enough. I should have killed all of you right away. Just the thought of it makes me sick!”

“Well, a rich kid will always be a rich kid, brandishing about his righteousness without having been through any real-life experience,” the old man sneered at Tang Luo. “These children were not captured by us. They are orphans abandoned by their parents, and we just took them in. Princes like you wouldn’t possibly know, but every time disaster strikes, a lot of children die in the wilderness. I just make them die differently and in the process save even more lives. What’s so wrong with that?”

“After arriving at Red Cloud Mountain, you refused to distribute food and left us to fend for ourselves. What could we do besides exchange children for food? We are martial artists—without meat for just a day, we’d already feel powerless. Did you really think that a few grain supplements would satisfy us!? Yes, I eat people, but after I do, I collect and bury their bones to pay respects. What about you, Tang Luo? You drowned over a thousand people from Yue family in the flood. Why don’t you atone for your sins in front of me?”

What’s the difference between ending up in someone’s stomach and rotting in the wild? All of them were martial artists. Without meat for a few days, they d lose their strength. But where could they find meat amidst such a flood?

How many people die at the hands of major families each year? What’s wrong with cannibalism? The old man didn’t feel any guilt.

The old man, knowing he had no means of survival, had dropped all pretenses entirely, and the group of cripples led by him displayed an unexpectedly strong aura.

“A desperate struggle!” Tang Luo watched their movements, activating the Undying Battle Body and the huge silver-grey figure appeared on the earth once again.

The old man channeled spiritual power throughout his body, puffing up his clothes, making him seem a moral exemplar. “He’s all alone, attack him!” he pointed at Tang Luo and ordered.

Under the resounding battle cry, the crippled old men charged at the giant figure, while the old moral exemplar shot into the sky and disappeared to the north in the blink of an eye.

Faced with a group of warriors, none of whom had even reached the peak of the Transcendent Realm, Tang Luo didn’t bat an eyelid. A primordial energy arrow equivalent to 90 million medicinal herbs was released, targeting the ringleader now flying away.

The pillar of light that shot into the sky eliminated the old moral exemplar in the air, while the warriors on the ground had already charged in front of the giant and began to attack.

The shadow of the Great Mighty Dragon exploded in a burst, and with a single sweep, it blasted several people into bits and pieces. The giant combined his palms to form a giant ax, randomly flailing around, causing a rain of blood and flesh.

In a short while, the backbone of the Cripple Wood was scattered all around, limbs and flesh everywhere, effectively wiped out.

Tang Luo deactivated his Undying Battle Body, silently looking at the land soaked with blood. He did not regret killing these people, only he suddenly began to ponder.

There were many more dark places hidden within this Red Cloud Mountain, places like the Cripple Wood, where people practiced cannibalism. And what he needed to do, was to dig out all these places and kill every one of these cannibals..