Chapter 036: Coveting

Wang Bo twitched his ears, eavesdropping on every movement in the Liu residence.

But he only heard a single breath; apart from that, he heard nothing.

No voices, no footsteps, no heartbeats, no knocking, and certainly no barking—throughout the entire residence, apart from this one continuous, drawn-out breath, there was nothing at all.

At once, a chill rose from Wang Bo's heart.

Could it be that in this Liu residence, aside from this breathing, there is no longer a single living soul?

Could it be that Gu Buxing has already killed everyone?

Wang Bo listened again and again, and after confirming that apart from that breathing, he could hear nothing else, he thought for a moment, then leaped up, vaulted over the courtyard wall of the Liu residence, and entered the back garden of the Liu mansion.

Looking around, the garden was filled with colorful flowers in full bloom, a brilliant display of reds and purples, exquisitely beautiful and truly a sight to behold.

Wang Bo followed the garden all the way to the corridor, and during that time he did not see a single person.

There wasn't even a single patrolling guard.

At the same time, there was no pungent smell of blood in the Liu residence, as if everyone had vanished at once—no one alive, no corpses to be found. This situation was even more chilling.

Wang Bo advanced all the way, passed through a circular arch, and soon entered a side courtyard.

The side courtyard was not large; a rockery stood within it, and facing the rockery was a house.

The breathing sound Wang Bo heard was coming from inside this house.

Creak...

As the door opened, a man in a captain's blue martial attire walked out from inside.

Wang Bo took one look and immediately recognized the other party.

No wonder he found the name Gu Xingwen so familiar; it was him.

A few days earlier, Wang Bo and Hanyue had gone to the Luo River for an outing. From a distance, they witnessed a vendetta in the martial world. One side was the man in blue, while the other consisted of two men in gray.

But this battle ended with the victory of Gu Xingwen, the man in blue martial attire.

But at the time, Wang Bo did not want to get involved with them and deliberately avoided them. He never expected to see this Gu Xingwen again today.

But compared to back then, the Gu Xingwen of today has clearly undergone a tremendous change.

That day, Gu Xingwen had a rosy complexion, delicate skin, and was brimming with vitality, exuding the bearing of a wandering swordsman.

But I never expected that after merely a few days without seeing him, Gu Xingwen would have undergone such an earth-shattering change.

Now Gu Xingwen's face was as pale as a dead man's, without the slightest trace of color; his skin had turned sallow, his eye sockets deeply sunken, and the circles under his eyes had become utterly black.

This getup reminded Wang Bo of the disciple of the Ancient One from Doctor Strange, the villain who joined Dormammu's side—what was his name, Ka-something?

For a moment, Wang Bo couldn't recall the other's name.

Anyway, Gu Xingwen's current attire is pretty much the same as that Ka-something's.

In particular, Gu Xingwen's eyes were deathly still; apart from breathing, Wang Bo could not even hear the other's heartbeat.

This struck Wang Bo as exceptionally horrifying, as if what stood before him was no longer a person.

This guy must have wandered onto the wrong set. If he had appeared in the set of A Chinese Ghost Story or Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, Wang Bo could have accepted it, at least without any sense of incongruity.

But now, Wang Bo felt a strong sense of dissonance. If he remembered correctly, this world was supposed to be a world of martial arts. Why would a character like this appear?

"Are you also here to snatch my treasure?"

Gu Xingwen looked at Wang Bo with lifeless eyes and spoke, though his voice was strange, as if he hadn't spoken for a long time, sounding very rusty.

But when Wang Bo heard this voice, he felt a chill wind rise from the depths of his heart, blowing into his internal organs, as if it would freeze them completely stiff.

At that moment, the ripples within Wang Bo's body began to circulate automatically, and with each breath, they repeatedly blocked this chilling wind, protecting his internal organs.

At this, Wang Bo realized that this was no damn illusion at all.

It was genuine, bone-chilling wind.

The other party had just used something akin to sorcery in an attempt to kill themselves.

Wang Bo was instantly shocked. This can't be right; this world should be a martial arts world, right?

Gu Xingwen saw Wang Bo standing before him completely unharmed, and his heart couldn't help but pause for a moment, yet he showed no surprise. He gently waved his hand and said, "Go die!"

The next second, the air rioted. As Gu Xingwen waved his hand, a terrifying current of air formed a storm that instantly blasted Wang Bo's body, the immense propulsive force sending him flying.

Wang Bo crashed into a wall in a sorry state, the powerful impact even shattering the wall and sending him flying dozens of meters away.

An involuntary, smug smile surfaced on Gu Xingwen's cold, lifeless face, but the next second, his smile froze because he saw Wang Bo stand up completely unscathed, casually shaking the dust from his clothes.

Gu Xingwen's expression gradually turned grim. Ever since obtaining that treasure, his strength had advanced by leaps and bounds, changing every day, and in just a few days it had undergone earth-shaking transformations.

Now, he was nearly a god or demon; anyone who came to seize his treasure, he could kill with effortless ease.

Without the slightest effort.

He felt that he had already surpassed the so-called number one under heaven, achieving invincibility throughout the world.

But Wang Bo's appearance shattered Gu Xingwen's understanding of himself; he discovered that he was not as powerful as he had imagined, for he could not even kill an ordinary person.

After shaking the dust from his body, Wang Bo looked at Gu Xingwen with an expression of disbelief.

Without a doubt, that attack just now was no longer martial arts.

Perhaps in a high-martial world, someone could do this, but in this world, no one should be able to do this.

Although he was not seriously injured, he was sent flying backward.

This already suffices to prove Gu Xingwen's strength.

Although Wang Bo considered himself an ordinary person, in truth he was well aware that he was anything but ordinary—his superhuman body of steel far surpassed mere invulnerability to blades and bullets or indestructibility.

He could even withstand several tons of impact force head-on without taking a single step back.

But Gu Xingwen waved his hand and sent himself flying.

"Is this the power of the demon pearl?" Wang Bo was now more and more curious about the demon pearl. What exactly was it that could grant humans such immense strength in a short time?

Gu Xingwen's face turned cold. The demonic pearl was his reverse scale—his most sensitive point. By coveting it, Wang Bo became his irreconcilable mortal enemy.

Go to hell!

Gu Xingwen roared hoarsely, his entire body like a launched cannonball, shooting toward Wang Bo.

Wang Bo was not willing to show weakness either; his foot stamped the ground, and a tremendous force erupted with a boom, splitting the ground open as dust and stones shot out behind him.

In the next second, the two collided almost simultaneously.

Boom!