The onlookers stared at the scene before them. Just seconds ago, Kay was domineering, but now he was stepped on by someone who was recognized as useless from birth. His life and death were no longer in his own hands. Everyone was shocked; the drastic change had their brains struggling to catch up.
Ye Han glanced around casually, noting the change in the crowd, and smiled faintly. "This is the effect of strength."
"Please let me go," Kay begged with a scream.
"It's too late to beg for mercy now," Ye Han said, his foot pressing down harder, and with a "crack," Kay's bones broke under his powerful force.
Ye Han slowly bent down, reaching for Kay's right arm. "I heard you have some talent in cultivating fighting spirit in your family. I wonder what will happen if I break your arm."
"I'm sorry, Seventh Master, I know I was wrong," Kay pleaded.
Ignoring Kay's pleas, Ye Han twisted his arm fiercely, and with another "crack," the arm was broken.
"No," came a scream, whether from the pain or the unwillingness to accept his right arm's ruin.
"Ah, right. A Light Magician could heal your arm, but..."
With a faint smile, Ye Han's gaze drifted toward Kay's lower body, and Kay immediately understood what was to come.
"The Patricklee family will not let you off, nor will your lowly mother," Kay said viciously.
"I'm waiting for your family's revenge." With that, Ye Han's foot kicked viciously toward Kay's groin.
Kay's body curled up with immense pain, shaking and screaming, his hands clutching his lower body as he glared at Ye Han.
"Your gaze makes me uncomfortable."
After Ye Han spoke, Kay instinctively saw two dark shadows stabbing toward his eyes. Instant pain shot through his soul, blood and flesh flowed from his now closed eyes.
"You will die, and so will your mother. No one will get off easy," Kay threatened, even in his state, which enraged Ye Han.
Ye Han's foot came down hard on Kay's legs, and the sound of breaking bones echoed once more. The onlookers felt a chill rush from their feet to their souls, trembling, with the more faint-hearted shaking uncontrollably.
The intense pain caused Kay to faint. Looking down at the motionless Kay, Ye Han's mouth curved slightly. He walked over to the brocade box, picked it up, and headed toward the Helian residence. The previously impenetrable crowd immediately made way. Ye Han, indifferent to the surrounding stares, strode off and disappeared from view.
"Is that really the born useless one?" a passerby asked.
The crowd was still immersed in Ye Han's bloody methods, dumbfounded and incredulous.
A year ago, he was deemed useless, but now he effortlessly defeated Kay, a mid-tier third-rank swordsman, without even using fighting spirit. The only words in everyone's mind to describe such a cultivation speed were "terrifying."
Kay's attendants, seeing their young master lying on the ground, uncertain of life or death, were sweating profusely. They hurriedly carried the bloodied Kay back to the Patricklee family to inform the family head.
Ye Han returned to his place. The servants, seeing blood all over him, scorned, thinking he had been beaten up. In reality, Ye Han was unharmed; the blood was all from Kay and his attendants. Ye Han cared little for the servants' opinions.
After changing his clothes, delayed by the incident with Kay, Ye Han felt a heat rising in his body on his way home.
"What happened exactly?" the current head of the Patricklee family, Kay's father, Kailun, demanded.
Seeing his son, who had been fine in the morning, now carried back crippled, enraged Kailun, who smashed his teacup.
The attendants, kneeling before him, stutteringly recounted the whole incident.
"The Helian family dares to be so brazen," Kailun roared after hearing the story. The Patricklee family, as one of the major families in Kelter City, now faced humiliation by a second-rate family.
"They think the Helian family is tired of living," Kailun said angrily. His powerful ninth-rank swordsman's presence burst forth, making it hard for the kneeling attendants to breathe. The weaker ones spat blood and collapsed.
"Useless fools, get out!" The attendants, hearing this, quickly left the hall.
"Don't worry. I will make that waste and the entire Helian family pay," Kailun said coldly, comforting the noblewoman who rushed in, crying for justice for her only son.
"Who did this to my grandson?" An elderly man with white hair and an even fiercer presence than Kailun entered, roaring angrily.
"Father, why have you come?"
"You still have the face to speak? Look at the mess you've made. If I hadn't come out, my grandson would have been killed by now. You're regressing. Our Patricklee family is being humiliated by a minor second-rate family. My grandson is crippled today, what's next? Will our family's estate be destroyed tomorrow?" The old man said angrily.
"Father, it's not like you imagine. It was just a minor incident, and that 'born waste' from the Helian family took such a ruthless action. I was about to question the Helian family," Kailun explained the whole story he had learned from the attendants.
"It's impossible. During the last test, everyone saw that Helian Wuji didn't even have a sense of fighting spirit. How could he possibly defeat Kay, who has the strength of a mid-tier third-rank swordsman, effortlessly within a year?" The old man showed disbelief after hearing Kailun's account.
"I'm puzzled too, but the servants reported that the boy showed no fluctuation of fighting spirit during the fight."
"No fluctuation of fighting spirit? That's even less likely. There are only two possibilities for this: one is that the person's strength exceeds everyone present by at least four ranks, which is why the fluctuation of fighting spirit wasn't detected, and the other is that he simply doesn't use fighting spirit. The second possibility can be ruled out since he defeated Kay, so it only leaves the first. But that would mean the boy has the strength of at least a seventh-rank swordsman. Impossible, absolutely impossible," the old man couldn't believe his own conclusion.
"Father, I also can't figure it out. So, should we still go after them?" Kailun asked cautiously.
"Go? Why wouldn't we? Even if he has the strength of a seventh-rank swordsman, should we allow him to bully our Patricklee family?"
"Alright, I will gather people."
"What people? Just you and me, along with two ninth-rank magicians from our family, will be enough. We'll go first thing in the morning," the old man said coldly.
"Yes, I'll go notify the two magicians."
"Is the Seventh Master there?" Even though Ye Han was seen as a waste by outsiders, his status was still there. No matter how much the servants looked down on someone who couldn't cultivate, they still had to follow the etiquette. In the land of Qing Ming, the hierarchy between masters and servants was very strict.
After dinner, Ye Han was summarizing the day's fight with Kay in his room when he suddenly heard someone shouting outside. He stepped out to see it was one of the family's guards and asked, "What's the matter?"
"The family head has summoned you to the hall," the guard said indifferently.
"To the hall? What does he want with me at this time?" Ye Han was puzzled, thinking about the father he had only seen a few times in more than a decade, suddenly wanting to see him, "Could it be... the news travels fast."
"Wait for me," Ye Han said, and then he went inside. He approached the table where the brocade box was placed, opened it, took out the short sword inside, tucked it at his waist covered by his clothes, and walked outside.
"Let's go," Ye Han said, following the guard to the hall.