Fang Ming, his white robes stained with blood, looked towards the distance with a grave expression.
That was where the fleeing bandits, by instinct, were running.
If they were ordinary bandits, without any extraordinary individuals among them, then Fang Ming would have already achieved victory.
After all, the enemy had been routed and were scattering in all directions.
But Fang Ming knew that he hadn't truly solved the problem yet.
The extraordinary individuals among the bandits, the high-ranking ones, had not yet made their move.
In a world where the extraordinary existed, defeating the lower ranks did not mean the problem was truly solved.
The key was always to deal with the opponent's extraordinary individuals.
And Fang Ming's actions, which had led to the bandits' rout,
had also infuriated the true extraordinary individuals within their ranks!
"Brat! You're courting death! How dare you lay a hand on my people!"
The bandit leader was enraged!
Earlier, when he had scanned with his divine sense, he had seen Fang Ming, a delicate youth, hiding by the grass and slowly retreating.
Naturally, he had been captivated by Fang Ming's appearance.
Thus, he had ordered his men to capture such perfect merchandise alive.
Such perfect merchandise, one could imagine, would be incredibly valuable. Once sold, it would be enough to live a life of luxury without worry.
After this one score, they could retire and live as law-abiding citizens.
One piece of merchandise was worth more than a thousand, even ten thousand others.
Who wouldn't be tempted by this?
He was practically a walking gold ingot.
Why would good people become bandits? Wasn't it all forced by life?
With enough money, who would want to constantly fight enemies out here, doing such a low-class job? They would be like the nobles in the towns, spending their inexhaustible wealth to enjoy life.
In the bandit leader's eyes, Fang Ming was that shining, walking gold ingot.
He was also the hope for his own comfortable life for the rest of his days.
Therefore, the bandit leader didn't give much thought to whether Fang Ming had any background or not. As long as he pulled off this score, he would have enough money to last a lifetime, flee to another place, and never return.
Even if Fang Ming's family had the greatest background, they wouldn't be able to do anything to him.
When the bandit leader ordered Fang Ming's capture, ninety percent of his attention was focused on finding a suitable buyer and on how to guard against retaliation from Fang Ming's family, who he assumed was behind this noble young master.
He had never imagined.
That this seemingly frail youth, who was indeed physically weak, could suddenly kill eleven bandits and then scare the rest into fleeing.
Impossible!
He had already scanned with his divine sense, perceived his aura.
There was no extraordinary power on this young man; he was not an extraordinary individual.
Not an extraordinary individual, could an ordinary thirteen or fourteen-year-old boy achieve this?
The bandit leader's face darkened.
In his mind, he had never envisioned such a scenario.
In his mind, an ordinary youth, even if only four bandits were sent out, could capture him without any suspense, alive.
Therefore, even though he knew Fang Ming's importance and his great value, he didn't think it was impossible to capture him by sending out only his bandits who lacked extraordinary powers.
This was a fixed mindset.
He had never considered that Fang Ming could use his seemingly weak strength and his extremely refined killing methods to, by himself, kill one-third of a bandit group of over thirty people.
And scare the remaining two-thirds into fleeing.
Such an exquisitely refined killing method, in the bandit leader's opinion, was like a myth. Every move, every strike, was perfected to the extreme, reaching a state of perfection.
This was perfect technique.
These were killing skills honed by extreme combat experience.
How many people had this young man killed to cultivate such terrifying killing techniques?
The bandit leader marveled in his heart. He considered himself worldly, but even the most experienced extraordinary individuals he had ever encountered were far inferior to this young man.
Compared to this young man's combat experience and killing techniques, all the ordinary humans and extraordinary individuals he had ever seen seemed like children playing games, utterly laughable.
The bandit leader's only relief was that this young man was indeed not an extraordinary individual. Otherwise, even if this young man had just reached the first stage of Qi Yuan cultivation, he would have felt that capturing him alive would be impossible this time.
Fortunately, he was a true mortal.
There was a fundamental difference between mortals and extraordinary individuals.
After confirming that Fang Ming was absolutely a mortal, the bandit leader had absolute confidence that he could subdue Fang Ming.
Therefore, he directly ordered two of his subordinates, who were at the third stage of Qi Yuan and were extraordinary individuals, to take action.
The bandit group founded by the bandit leader consisted of over thirty people in total.
Among them, over thirty were ordinary people without extraordinary powers.
The bandit leader, known as the First Boss, along with the Second and Third Bosses, were all extraordinary individuals.
This bandit group was thus a collective composed of over thirty ordinary people and three extraordinary individuals.
The three extraordinary individuals were the true upper echelon of this organization, holding the power of life and death.
And due to the difference in strength between the fifth stage of Qi Yuan and the third stage of Qi Yuan, the Second and Third Bosses, both at the third stage of Qi Yuan, were subordinates of the bandit leader.
The bandit leader could command them.
Thus, the Second and Third Bosses, two middle-aged men who looked extremely fierce, lunged towards Fang Ming.
They moved with incredible speed.
From Fang Ming's perspective,
these two men were like martial arts masters, moving like the wind, leaping high and low. The terrain of the forest seemed unable to restrict them.
A leap of three to four zhang.
This was the level of a stronger acquired martial artist.
One zhang was approximately three meters.
This meant that the Second and Third Bosses could leap twelve meters in a single bound, clearing the height of a four-story building on Earth.
Such speed naturally brought them before Fang Ming in a very short time.
The Third Boss did not dare to underestimate Fang Ming.
He knew how impressive the young man's record was.
Despite being a mortal youth, he had killed eleven strong men, his killing techniques honed to perfection.
Even more terrifying was that this young man, apart from being exhausted, had very few wounds.
To achieve this while surrounded by bandits, all armed with long sabers, the Third Boss certainly could not afford to be careless.
Therefore, he channeled the Qi Yuan within his body into his arm and unleashed a Qi Yuan attack from a distance.
Qi Yuan is the lowest realm in the cultivation system of the Divine Realm, focusing on cultivating the "Qi" within the body to transform it into "Yuan Li."
When "Qi" and "Yuan" combine, it becomes Qi Yuan.
Qi Yuan can not only be nurtured within the body but can also be directly released to attack enemies.
This is a common attack method for cultivators in the Qi Yuan realm of the Divine Realm.
However, because practitioners at the third stage of Qi Yuan, even if they can project Qi Yuan to attack, have a certain range limitation, they cannot attack from extremely far distances, across thousands of meters, and still inflict damage.