The chubby bandit leader's mouth gaped open in utter astonishment.
"Huh?!"
Wu Niu had deliberately impaled his foot on the chubby bandit's blade during mid-air so that he could flip upon the crossguard of the blade—still impaled—ergo the chubby bandit's raised hand.
Balancing upon the chubby bandit's hand, Wu Niu lifted his other foot before he had time to process what was happening.
With all of his might concentrated into one crane kick, Wu Niu smashed the palm of his foot directly into the chubby bandit's nose, slamming him into the ground.
While still aerial, Wi Niu rebalanced himself as to land on his safe foot softly. He held out the impaled foot and slowly withdrew the long spear-like blade from it, leaving a gaping hold dripping with slick crimson fluid.
The chubby bandit lifted his head off the ground as he tried to recover from his kick to the face. But before he had the chance to sit forward, Wu Niu had lobbed the sword through the air like a javelin, piercing the bandit's shoulder pinning him to the dirt.
The chubby bandit howled in pain, with tears rolling down his face.
-There was no way that was the extent of a "Bronze" realm practitioner's power.
The chubby bandit's nose was crushed inward, making him somewhat resemblant of a pig. However, Wu Niu was more focused on the fact that he was crying.
-Is he… afraid?
Wu Niu hopped over to the bandit so that he could finish the job, but as he approached, the chubby bandit squealed and cried, instilling hesitance in whether his judgment to execute him was sound.
"P-Please. S-Spare me. Please!" the bandit pleaded.
Wu Niu fingered the hilt of the blade as he questioned the pathetic bandit.
"Hmm… Why should I?"
"B-B-Because I c-can—" stuttered the bandit.
"You're just like everyone else in this crummy world. You look down on and abuse the weak, yet you fear and praise the strong, like a dirty sycophant. And despite the painfully obvious irony of this dynamic, you can't see outside the prism of your own self-interest for even one second to realize it."
"W-Wha—?"
Wu Niu squatted down by the bandit and looked him in the eyes. He saw in them ceaseless fiery hate for him masked behind feigned remorse.
-Fake. It's that same fake look.
The bandit scrambled to come up with a way to manipulate the situation.
"I-I'm s-sorry. I-I promise not to be bad anymore. I'll even sever my qi. I mean it, really!"
Wu Niu spat off to the side and spoke.
"You are a fake person. Even now—when you're in a terribly unfavorable situation—you can still manage to keep composed and lie to me with a straight face. It's almost impressive."
The bandit's lip quivered as he tried to hide his furious temperament.
Wu Niu stood up and wrapped his hands around the sword hilt.
"Even if I believed you, I couldn't afford the risk. You've seen my face, and I'm sure you know it well. I'm confident your type to seek revenge, and that isn't worth the trouble."
Wu Niu set his foot on the chubby bandit's shoulder and lifted the sword. The bandit beveled, face twisting as the metal spike left a painfully exposed slit in its wake.
"I'll change my ways if you spare me! I will! I promise it in my life!"
"Did you ever once spare a person who asked you to?"
The sound of pouring water could be heard as a dark spot stained the chubby bandit's pants. This forced Wu Niu lips to contract into a smile.
The chubby bandit's ashamed and hopeless revealed his true self, angrily blurting, "If you kill me, my buddies will come for you, and they're much stronger than me."
Wu Niu bit his lip to and whispered, "Let them come for me. That is if they even notice that you're gone."
"D-Damn y—"
The spear-like blade stuck the pig's throat, and the light faded from his eyes.
"Oh yeah, I said I'd be dying after you, didn't I? By that, what I meant was that I'd be dying of old age. Sorry, not sorry."
Wu Niu turned to see the men still on the ground and desperately trying to crawl back to their feet.
-I must've castrated them.
Wu Niu gave the men a fake smile, signaling to them that it was their turn.
"I didn't say I was going to kill you two, but I'm going to anyway."
Stumbling to their feet, the bandits made a pitiful attempt for an escape. At the pace they were moving, Wu Niu wasn't going to have any trouble keeping up. Veering away from each other, one ran for the river while the other ran into the trees.
-Shit.
Arching back his hand, Wu Niu leaned forward into a mighty throw sending the sword whistling through the air and into the back of the man bolting for the river. The man lifelessly fell to the ground with a punctured heart.
Wu Niu immediately turned his attention to the man running deep into the woods. Giving chase through the swampy forestry, Wu Niu eventually managed to catch up to the man and tackle him to the ground.
Promptly crawling back onto his feet. Wu Niu hastily jumped onto the bandit's neck, snapping it like a twig. However, Wu Niu pulled his flint knife out and cut the arteries in the front of his neck to make sure he was dead.
Searching through the man's pockets, Wu Niu found a canteen full of liquor.
"Yes!"
Popping the cork out, he poured the liquor onto the hole in his foot to disinfect it.
-Damn, that stings.
Wu Niu cut a section of fabric off man's shirt sleeve, converting it into a long strand of white fabric, which he abundantly swathed around his foot.
"Hmm…"
Wu Niu's attention was brought to the man's feet. On them were wicker sandals that clung snugly to his feet by braided rope straps that wrapped around the man's ankle and feet.
Loosening the braided ropes constraining the man's feet and slipping them off, Wu Niu then put them on and began shaking his feet to see if they would fall off. Much to his content, the sandals fit like a glove—almost as if they were made specifically for him.
-Perfect.
Standing up and resheathing his knife, Wu Niu unclipped his waterskin and chugged it down till it was empty. Then clipping the waterskin back to his belt, he wiped his mouth dry with the back of his hand.
Wu Niu wasn't sure what to do next.
-Perhaps I should try burry them.