172: Chapter 172 Foreign Forces

“Help him down.”

It was Chen Feng who spoke.

He stood on the sidelines, his hands behind his back.

He had expected Song Yang to win, but he hadn't expected it to be so clean and efficient.

It wasn't just a simple crushing display of strength, but an extreme grasp of timing and openings—a terrifying instinct honed through countless life-and-death battles.

Hearing this, two burly men quickly stepped forward and busily helped the still-dazed Meng Tu up from the ground.

Meng Tu shook his head. The fighting spirit in his eyes as he looked at Song Yang was gone; he had lost, and he was thoroughly convinced.

Just as the crowd was whispering among themselves, a figure walked out of the crowd and stepped straight into the white circle.

It was a woman, tall, with a cold expression and a sleek ponytail.

She didn't carry a conventional weapon, but instead held a long object that gleamed with a ghastly, bone-white luster.

It was the entire spine of some unknown creature, with flexible fascia seemingly connecting the joints, swaying with every step she took.

“Qin Jian, ranked twelfth.”

The woman's voice was as cold as her face. Without any unnecessary chatter, she said, “My weapon is a 'Bone Whip'. You'd better pick one too.”

Song Yang's gaze lingered on the terrifying bone whip for a moment.

This thing was harder to deal with than swords or blades.

It had great power and range, and its angles were tricky and strange.

He didn't get cocky and turned to walk toward the weapon rack on the sidelines.

The weapon rack was fully stocked with various weapons, all well-maintained.

Song Yang finally drew a standard military short blade.

No need for words.

The horn of battle had already sounded the moment the two locked eyes.

“Whoosh!”

Qin Jian initiated the attack. With a flick of her wrist, the bone-white whip let out a shrill whistle as it sliced through the air, striking down at Song Yang's head!

Unlike Meng Tu's raw ferocity, Qin Jian's attacks carried a kind of sinister ruthlessness.

Song Yang didn't retreat but advanced instead. With a shift of his feet, he became like a wisp of smoke, closing the distance instantly.

The best way to deal with a long whip is to get close!

“Naive!”

Qin Jian snorted coldly. The bone whip, originally striking straight down, bent strangely in mid-air, its tip sweeping toward Song Yang's ribs like a living thing!

This change of move was dazzlingly fast.

The crowd outside let out a collective gasp; if that whip had connected, it would likely have broken bones and tendons on the spot.

However, Song Yang seemed to have anticipated this move.

His forward momentum halted abruptly, and his waist bent backward to an extent no ordinary person could achieve, almost parallel to the ground.

Crack!

The bone whip swept past the tip of his nose and struck heavily against the rubber mat behind him, cracking it.

Missing her strike, Qin Jian's eyes narrowed. Her wrists flew, and the bone whip turned into a sky full of whip shadows in her hands, flying up and down, opening and closing, sealing off all space for Song Yang to dodge.

Song Yang was like prey caught in a spider web, constantly maneuvering amidst the lethal attacks.

But the short blade in his hand remained sheathed the entire time.

He was waiting.

Waiting for an opportunity to win with a single strike.

After another dozen rounds, Qin Jian's offensive grew increasingly fierce, but her breathing had begun to show a slight irregularity.

Now is the time!

In the split second after another horizontal sweep, when the old force was spent and the new one hadn't yet formed, Song Yang moved.

He no longer dodged; his body, like a fully drawn bow, suddenly sprang up, and the short blade in his hand finally left its sheath!

There was no flash of steel, no earth-shattering momentum.

Only a streak of cold light, fast to the extreme.

Clang!

A crisp sound of metal clashing rang out.

The sky full of whip shadows suddenly vanished.

The crowd widened their eyes to see Song Yang already standing in front of Qin Jian, the tip of his short blade pointed at the woman's throat.

Qin Jian's body froze; she could feel that if the blade moved even half an inch further, her carotid artery would be severed.

She had lost.

In terms of footwork, perception, and grasp of combat opportunities, she had lost completely.

“I concede.”

Qin Jian slowly spat out the three words, retracted the bone whip, cast a complex look at Song Yang, and then decisively turned and walked out of the white circle.

Song Yang sheathed his short blade and returned it to the weapon rack.

“Good skills, good perception.”

Chen Feng had been observing Song Yang for a long time.

He knew very well that Song Yang's physical fitness was not much different from Meng Tu and Qin Jian, whom he had just defeated.

Perhaps in terms of pure strength, he might even be inferior to Meng Tu.

The only difference was that combat instinct that seemed etched into his very bones.

That was something that could only be nurtured through blood and death in life-or-death struggles decided by a hair's breadth.

Where did this young man get so much experience in life-and-death fighting?

Could it be that he was a butcher in Dahai City who took pleasure in killing?

This thought flashed through Chen Feng's mind, only to be rejected by himself.

No, a butcher's eyes are numb and cruel, while Song Yang's eyes were as clear as ice, like a surgeon's scalpel—precise, calm, existing only to achieve a goal, without any unnecessary impurities.

He killed for his own survival.

Chen Feng pulled back his thoughts, scanned the crowd, and announced in a steady voice:

“Song Yang's ranking is tentatively eleventh.”

“That's it for today's sparring. Everyone take an hour to rest and get into your best state.”

He looked around at everyone, his expression turning serious:

“There is an important operation shortly.”

An hour later, at Chen Feng's invitation, Song Yang followed a strike team of over twenty people to the rooftop of a ten-plus-story building in the east of the city.

Before long, a group of figures appeared at the end of a street several kilometers away.

They walked loosely, but maintained a distance that allowed them to support each other at any moment.

Everyone was blonde and blue-eyed, all of them Caucasian.

“Seventeen people, not one less.”

Chen Feng watched the group from afar.

“These foreign Evolvers enter the city every three days to raid the Shelter's underground warehouse. This time, we've finally found them, and this time, they must all die here.”

“Remember, don't hold back when you strike. Anything useful on them belongs to whoever grabs it. I'll handle the strongest person on their side.”

Everyone deliberately slowed their breathing, as if afraid to alert the prey in the distance.

Song Yang's gaze followed Chen Feng's line of sight.

On the street, the foreign squad walked steadily, maintaining just the right distance between each other so they could cover one another without being wiped out by a single explosive.

They were veterans.

Five hundred meters.

This distance was already within someone's range.

At this moment, Chen Feng moved.

No words.

No gestures.

He just turned around calmly, bent down, and grabbed a solid steel beam leaning against the wall corner.

The steel beam was construction waste, covered in dark red rust, over two meters long, and thicker than an adult's wrist.

Just by looking at it, one could feel its heavy weight.

Yet in Chen Feng's hands, it felt like a light javelin.

He spread his feet shoulder-width apart, lowered his body slightly, and took a standard throwing stance.

At this moment, all the muscles in his body seemed to come alive.

“Hoo—”

A breath of stale air was expelled from his mouth.

The heavy steel beam left his hand.

It compressed and tore through the air ahead at a terrifying speed exceeding the speed of sound, emitting a shriek that made eardrums ache!

A visible white shockwave exploded at the front of the steel bar.

On the street.

The blonde man walking at the very front seemed to sense something and suddenly looked up.

In his field of vision, there was only a rapidly enlarging black dot.

The next instant.

His head vanished.

It wasn't crushed; it was completely annihilated by that unrivaled kinetic energy, turning into a bloody mist mixed with bone fragments and brain matter, spraying violently toward the rear!

The deadly steel bar showed no signs of slowing down.

It easily pierced through the cavity left by the first man's vanished head.

And with a destructive force, it pierced through the second man's chest in his astonishment, exiting from his back.

The immense impact carried the second corpse and slammed it hard into the third person.

“Pfft!”

The front of the steel bar submerged into flesh and blood once again.

Finally.

This terrifying “javelin,” like a giant iron nail, skewered the three bodies together, carried them over a hundred meters away, and finally nailed them firmly to the cement wall of a shop!

Boom!

The wall cracked with spiderweb-like fissures.

Blood and shattered internal organs flowed slowly down the wall, painting half of it and forming a hellish graffiti.

The entire process was so fast it took less than 0.1 seconds.

The remaining foreigners' faces changed drastically; the composure of predators on their faces was instantly replaced by extreme fear.

No screams.

No hesitation.

Almost as an instinctive reaction, everyone scattered instantly, using textbook tactical evasion maneuvers to dive toward the nearest cover.

Behind abandoned cars.

Beside collapsed walls.

“Rat-tat-tat-tat!”

The next second, intense gunfire erupted suddenly, bullets raining down like a storm, spraying wildly toward the rooftop, striking the concrete railing and sending sparks and debris flying.

“Move!”

Chen Feng didn't even look for cover.

Under everyone's gaze, he strode toward the edge of the rooftop, and like a tiger descending from the mountain, he leaped!

He jumped straight down from the ten-plus-story, nearly thirty-meter-high rooftop!

In Song Yang's pupils, the figure of Chen Feng falling was reflected.

This was not suicide.

This was the most violent form of assault, based on absolute confidence in one's own strength.