For a brief moment, all he could hear was the pounding of his own heart.

  Then—

  A thunderous crash. The unmistakable sound of a boot slamming into solid flesh.

  A bandit screamed. Another body hit the ground.

  This wasn’t Crimson Plume.

  There was nothing clean or precise about this. No silent executions, no surgical strikes. Just brute force and raw violence.

  “Think you can just waltz off with these potions?”

  Zi-Cheng recognized that voice right away, the condescending tone felt like a punch to his gut.

  Then he saw him.

  A tall, red-haired youth barrelled into the group of bandits like a wrecking ball, his fists flying like iron hammers. In mere seconds, bodies hit the ground, groaning in pain.

  "He’s just one guy, cut him down already!" the bandit leader snarled, drawing his sword before lunging forward.

  “You halfwits think you can take me?” The red-haired youth grinned, eyes gleaming with arrogance.

  Zi-Cheng squeezed his hand into a fist.

  Even after everything, after the stability he found at Golden Clover, after the guidance of the legendary Silver Priest, and the days of training, some wounds simply refused to heal.

  Because no matter how much he had improved, the mere sight of this bastard brought it all crashing back.

  It wasn’t just the memory of being beaten so badly that he could barely crawl away.

  It was the humiliation.

  The sheer helplessness of being mocked, stomped into the dirt, and not even having the words to fight back.

  (Why… why the hell is he here?!)

  Zi-Cheng’s breathing grew ragged. His fingers felt numb, his vision blurred.

  His entire body was trembling.

  And, his mind simply went blank.

  “Ven!”

  Even Elena noticed something was wrong and rushed to his side.

  “Why… why does it have to be Karl Murry….?!”

  An invisible force pinned Zi-Cheng on the ground. He gripped his head, cold sweat dripping down his face.

  Watching Karl weave through the bandits, fists smashing into flesh, every nerve in his body screamed as if the hits landed on him.

  (He’s not even hitting me, why the hell am I shaking?!)

  Frustration surged through him. With a sharp breath, he clenched his thigh so hard his knuckles turned white, veins bulging from the strain.

  He never expected Karl to show up here of all places, and he certainly never imagined the man who haunted his nightmares, the same bastard who had beaten him senseless, would be fighting to protect the Peach Potions.

  "Shit! This guy’s good—keep your distance!"

  A bandit staggered back, clutching his arm where Karl’s punch had nearly shattered bone. The others hesitated for a split second, eyes darting to their leader.

  The wiry bandit leader clicked his tongue.

  "Quit screwin’ around! Wear him down, then gut him!"

  Just like that, he withdrew from the fight, letting six of his men take his place.

  Karl barely had time to register the switch before the formation shifted. The bandits weren’t swarming him. They were cutting off his options.

  He lunged at one, but the moment he stepped forward, they pulled back. Another instantly took the opening, slashing in from behind.

  Karl twisted, narrowly avoiding the blade. But the second he turned, two more pressed in.

  A sword swept toward his ribs. Karl barely deflected it when another came for his leg. He kicked back, forcing them to withdraw, but they were already repositioning.

  Advance, they retreat.

  Retreat, they strike.

  The rhythm was relentless, their movements like a practiced hunting pack. They weren’t trying to beat him. They were grinding him down, forcing him to react, forcing his stamina to bleed away with every exchange.

  And behind them—

  The potion crates kept disappearing onto the carriage.

  "No! If this keeps up, they’re gonna take everything!" Elena’s grip on Zi-Cheng’s sleeve tightened, her voice shaking.

  Zi-Cheng didn’t move.

  His breath felt too heavy in his chest.

  He wasn’t looking at the fight anymore. He was looking at the crates. Watching his potions, his work, his effort being carried away just like before.

  Ming-Wei’s smirk burned into his mind. That moment when his game was stolen, when everything he built was ripped away while he stood there, helpless.

  (Not again.)

  His fingers dug into his palm, shaking.

  The frustration, the helplessness, the sheer rage pounded against him like a storm, breaking apart the last shreds of reason keeping him in place.

  (Don’t be reckless. What can you accomplish by rushing in like that?)

  But then—

  "Ven!"

  Elena’s desperate voice cut through the storm in his mind. Her tears glistened in the dim light.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  For the first time, he truly saw her—not as the girl he had once dismissed, not as just another face in his new life, but as someone who had never given up on him.

  Even when he pushed her away.

  Even when he pretended not to care.

  She was still here.

  (If I keep standing here, how can I face her after all of this?)

  The thought burned through his hesitation, melting away everything that had chained him down for so long.

  The fear.

  The humiliation.

  The helplessness.

  All of it snapped in that instant, giving way to something sharp, something clear.

  It wasn’t courage.

  It wasn’t heroism.

  But there was something he refused to lose, and that alone was enough.

  That alone was his strongest weapon.

  (No more running. No more freezing.)

  "Fighters clash with skill, but battles are never won by skill alone."

  Zi-Cheng whispered Victor’s words under his breath as he moved.

  Slipping out of the tent’s back entrance, he crouched behind a large boulder. His breath steadied, his heartbeat pounded in sync with the energy surging through him. His hands, glowing faintly with a soft blue light, pressed into the earth beneath him.

  "Terraform!"

  The ground heaved beneath him.

  A ripple surged forward, lifting the dirt into a sudden half-meter wave that rolled across the battlefield. It wasn’t an explosion, or an earthquake, but a sharp, controlled shift in the terrain just enough to send the bandits stumbling as their footing shifted beneath them.

  And then—

  It dropped.

  The earth snapped back down in an instant, yanking everyone’s balance out from under. Boots slipped, and knees buckled. The ones at the front fell forward, crashing hard onto the uneven ground while the ones in the back caught mid-step, toppled over in a chaotic mess.

  Karl took the opening instantly, lunging forward to strike the moment his attackers hit the dirt.

  “Worthless piece of trash!”

  The bandit leader cursed as he rolled aside, signaling the carriage driver to take off, but Zi-Cheng had already darted out from the shadow, charging straight at the carriage.

  “Remake!”

  A second display of Developer Mode, as Zi-Cheng threw himself at the carriage, a blinding white light erupted as his hand touched the moving carriage’s wheel.

  The powerful force rebounded against his right hand, sending him flying backwards.

  Pain exploded through his arm, and in the next instant, blood splattered through the air.

  A sharp, searing agony tore through him, piercing straight to the bone.

  “Hehehe… it hurts like hell, but I got you now….”

  He gasped for breath, his words barely leaving his lips when the racing carriage wheel morphed into a perfect square.

  The shift was instant, the carriage lurched violently, losing control before crashing into a tree nearby. The driver was flung into the air like a ragdoll, weightless for a moment before slamming onto the ground, unmoving.

  Zi-Cheng’s right hand throbbed with unbearable pain, but he still managed a strained smirk.

  Reaching into his coat, he pulled out a bottle of Peach Potion, poured it over his wound, and forced himself back onto his feet.

  The pain slowly eased, but the fight was far from over.

  “Yo, trash.”

  Karl’s voice came from behind him. Casual, confident – like just what happened was of nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

  “We meet again.”

  Zi-Cheng’s breath stilled. Slowly, he turned.

  The familiar clenched fist.

  The same arrogant smirk.

  Everything about this man that made his blood run cold was right there in front of him again.

  “Karl… Murry….”

  Surviving in the wild had toughened Zi-Cheng’s body. Training under Victor had sharpened his skills. But none of that mattered as he stood face to face with the man who had beaten him to the brink of collapse before.

  The fear ran deeper than instinct. It coiled around his bones, gnawing at the resolve that had pushed him this far.

  Was he going to smirk and throw another punch?

  Was he going to humiliate him again, knock him into the dirt like before?

  Or worse, was he going to tear through him like the bandits standing in his way?

  Zi-Cheng wasn’t sure.

  But this time, he made a choice.

  Even as his heart raced, even as every part of him screamed to take a step back, to lower his gaze, he stood his ground.

  “To be honest, I was hoping I wouldn’t see you again.”

  Zi-Cheng forced the words out, trying to mask his unease, and a moment of silence stretched between them.

  Karl didn’t move. He didn’t even blink.

  For one unbearable second, Zi-Cheng felt his pulse hammer against his ribs, waiting, expecting the impact of a fist, the sneer, the pain.

  But then—

  Karl scoffed.

  Like he had already seen through the thoughts running through Zi-Cheng’s mind, and had already seen what kind of person the once pathetic lowlife he despised had become.

  He smirked.

  “Seems like we finally got something we can agree on.”

  Karl set his foot down, and turned.

  He rolled his shoulders, cracking his neck like a predator limbering up.

  For the first time, he stood beside Zi-Cheng, fists raised, ready to face a common enemy.

  The bandits who had been thrown off balance moments ago were already scrambling back to their feet, weapons drawn. Some shook off the impact of the sudden terrain shift, while others instinctively repositioned themselves, closing ranks to protect their leader.

  But the bandit leader remained still.

  His grip on his sword was firm, his stance composed, but Karl caught it.

  A faint hesitation, subtle stiffness in his fingers, and a brief flicker of disbelief in his gaze.

  Even though non-combat abilities were fairly common outside the arena, what had just happened was something else entirely – a single intruder had warped the battlefield itself.

  The bandit leader had fought against warriors, assassins, even wild beasts beyond the walls, but never before had someone reshaped the ground beneath his feet.

  Karl exhaled sharply through his nose, his jaw tensed for half a second before shifting his stance slightly.

  “Don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t need backup for a bunch of third-rate bandits.”

  Karl charged at the bandit leader like an unleashed beast, his foot slamming against the ground and kicking up a cloud of dust as he closed the distance in a heartbeat.