Forging Immortality: The Undying Blacksmith

Chapter 38: The Beggar Boy

Only a bandit with some martial skill would dare to prey on travelers; the jianghu was no place for the weak.

Li Qing had anticipated as much. As he watched the bandit charge him on horseback, a flicker of mockery crossed his eyes before being replaced by a chilling calm.

“Eat my blade!”

The bandit spurred his horse into a leap. The broadsword swung down with overwhelming momentum and murderous intent, aimed straight for Li Qing’s head.

Having just returned from the Extreme Night World, Li Qing had left his Peerless Hammer behind. He was completely unarmed.

He watched the blade descend, his body as still as a stone.

The bandit grinned, assuming Li Qing was frozen in terror. He could already picture the man being cleaved in two.

But in the next instant, faster than an eye could blink, the very ground buckled under a tremendous force.

*BANG!*

Li Qing moved. Channeling Outer Force into his right foot, he unleashed an explosive burst of power and simply vanished.

The bandit’s blade sliced through empty air. The inertia of the swing threw him off balance, and he nearly tumbled from his saddle.

By then, Li Qing had already materialized on the other side of the horse. He shot into the air, his hands hooking into tiger claws.

“Die!”

*Tiger Seizing Prey!*

His hands shot out, snatched the staggering bandit from the saddle, and slammed him into the earth, sending up a cloud of dust.

He wasn’t finished. With a crisp snap of kinetic energy flowing to his fingertips, Li Qing tore the man’s shoulder from its socket.

*CRACK!*

The entire sequence was seamless, over in a matter of breaths. The ferocious bandit from moments ago was now a broken, half-crippled mess on the ground.

The other bandits stared, their expressions a mixture of shock and dread. It had all happened too fast for them to even process.

“Damn it, the kid’s a martial artist!”

“Hiss! An Outer Force practitioner! Run!”

“Get back to the stronghold! We can’t fight him!”

The remaining three shouted in alarm, yanking their reins to wheel their horses around.

But Li Qing had already committed. He had no intention of letting them go.

He crouched low, then launched himself forward like an arrow. For a brief moment, his explosive speed outpaced the galloping horses. It helped that the Jinshan Stronghold bandits were poor horsemen riding even poorer beasts, hardly true warhorses.

In seconds, Li Qing caught up to one of the fleeing men.

He struck with both fist and palm, unleashing a terrifying burst of power that blasted the man from his saddle.

Two left. Li Qing didn’t slow. Since he had started this, he would finish it.

The ground was littered with loose stones. He scooped up a handful and hurled them with vicious force.

*THWACK!*

The bandit on horseback convulsed as if struck by lightning. He hadn’t gotten far before he was knocked clean to the ground. His companion suffered the same fate. Both men twitched and writhed in the dirt, gasping for air.

In less than a few minutes, the four brutal bandits who had been herding the refugees were all subdued. Li Qing had taken them all down alone.

This was the absolute, crushing advantage a martial artist with Outer Force held over ordinary men. The outcome was never in doubt.

“Young hero, spare me! Please, spare my life!” one of the bandits cried out, clutching his shattered knee, his face slick with sweat.

Li Qing walked over to the pleading man and slowly crouched down, a cold sneer on his face. “Want to live? No problem. I ask, you answer. Dare to hide anything, and I’ll take your head.”

The bandit, his leg broken from the fall, nodded frantically, like a chicken pecking at grain. He was utterly broken.

“Your Jinshan Stronghold is near Wangyuan City?” Li Qing asked, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow as he caught his breath.

“Yes! About seventy li to the east,” the bandit answered immediately.

“It’s desolate out here. Besides a few villages closer to Wangyuan City, this is all just desert,” Li Qing continued, his eyes narrowing. “And it’s wartime. You can’t be robbing much grain. So where do you get your food?”

“We… we sometimes disguise ourselves as a merchant caravan to buy grain in the city. We use the gold and silver we steal. But with the war, even our money doesn’t buy much anymore…”

A slow, cold smile spread across Li Qing’s face. “It’s wartime. The city gates are sealed. Tell me how you get in.”

At those words, the bandit’s face went pale.

“Young hero, have mercy! The ones who go into the city for Supplies are the stronghold leader’s trusted men! They’d never let grunts like us go. I swear, I don’t know how they sneak in!” the bandit wailed.

Li Qing’s brow furrowed, his voice dropping to an icy whisper.

“Tell me, or you die.”

“I really don’t know! The man who meets them is a city guard! They give him a passphrase and he lets them in. That’s all I know!”

*CRACK!*

With that, Li Qing understood the relationship between the Jinshan Stronghold and the soldiers of Wangyuan City. Without the slightest hesitation, he twisted the bandit’s neck, extinguishing his life.

The remaining bandits watched, their eyes wide with terror.

They had mistaken him for some naive young master playing at chivalry, looking for trouble to feel like a hero. They saw him now for what he was: a living demon, an executioner who killed as easily as he breathed. The casual way he had just snapped a man’s neck sent a wave of pure dread through them.

Li Qing moved to the next man, asking the same question.

But they truly didn’t know. He went from one to the next, and by the time they were all dead, he had learned nothing more. It seemed the secret of entering the city was kept by the stronghold’s elite.

“What a waste of time.” Li Qing clapped the dust from his hands. He had a clear picture now. “Jinshan Stronghold is in bed with the city guards. No wonder they were so ‘kindly’ helping drive away the refugees.”

Starving refugees, if allowed to gather in large numbers, could become a disaster more terrifying than any army. The guards were using the bandits to keep their doorstep clean.

As Li Qing sighed, frustrated by his inability to get into the city, a weak voice suddenly cut through the silence from among the huddled refugees.

“I… I have a way to get in.”

Li Qing’s eyes lit up. His gaze locked onto a scrawny boy in the crowd, no older than twelve or thirteen.

“You. Come here,” Li Qing beckoned.

The boy, who looked like a little beggar, stepped forward, his face etched with nervousness.

“Speak. What’s your method?” Li Qing asked, his questions sharp and practical. “And if you know a way in, why are you still out here with the refugees?” He patted the flank of a bandit’s horse. “If your information is useful, this horse is yours.”