The roar hit like thunder.Every External Force fighter in the group froze solid.Men who normally strutted through Ashford County like they owned the streets stood there trembling, legs gone weak at the sound alone.Only two figures reacted fast enough to react at all, pulling their people out of the immediate blast radius.Danny had already reworked his loadout the second they crossed into the mountains.【Danny Reyes】【Vitality: 30/60 (Status: Cursed, Phantom Bride's Toll: -10 Vitality daily)】【Strength: 20】【Defense: 6】【Inner Energy: 0】【Agility: 8】【Charm: 69】【Item Slot (1): Iron Bone Method (Incomplete)】(Completion Requirement: 10 catties of demon tiger bone)【Item Slot (2): Bone Knife】【Item Slot (3): Bone-Shaking Fist】Right now, he needed maximum combat output. The two century herbs were dead weight against a fight like this.Twenty points of raw Strength pushed his physical output into an entirely different tier.The tiger's roar had thrown him for half a second same as ev

Danny drew the crossbow string back, pulled another dark, slender bolt from the quiver, and reloaded.He raised the crossbow again, sighting the tiger.Only seven bolts left in the quiver, unfortunately. Otherwise he wouldn't have needed to be this careful, he could've just kept hammering every weak point he saw.Through his sight, the black demonic aura wrapped around the tiger couldn't fully hide the faint white threads running underneath it. Each one marked a critical junction in its demonic energy flow.Given enough bolts, he could bleed the thing dry, point by point, starting with the easiest hits.Seven was tight. Every shot had to count.His first bolt had crippled mobility in its hind leg. The second had severed the nerve running through its tail, no tail meant no balance, meaning even more restricted movement.Five bolts left. Should be enough.But the tiger clearly understood the same math.It dropped low, angling its body to face Danny directly, tucking the rest of itself o

Something's wrong. This is a serious problem.This guy is not some Razor Society nobody.Their Blood Demon Sect had run its operation in Ashford County for years, always with extreme caution.Core membership had never changed, just seven people, Lisa Marchetti among them.The Ironwood School recruited fighters year after year, and every last one of them who cultivated the Blood Puppet Sutra had spent years walking around right in front of the Sect's own members, none the wiser.Both hunger and restraint had run in tandem for years. Only one, maybe two graduating fighters got picked each cycle, carefully arranged accidents, their spirit-blood harvested for cultivation.Years of experience had told Lisa that even if the Demon Slayer Division sent their highest-ranking official personally, they wouldn't crack her cover.But this kid had just called it out cold. Cover she'd kept airtight for years, gone in a single sentence.There was only one explanation.Danny Reyes is an agent. Planted

Danny had two solid instincts when it came to fighting.First: once a fight starts, it doesn't stop until someone's dead.So the instant the Demon-Devouring Blade unleashed its final strike, he'd already swapped the bone knife back into his slot.He fired straight at Lisa's weak point.The Demon-Slaying Crossbow's bolts had punched clean through a tiger demon's hide. Lisa was internal energy, sure, but her physical resilience didn't come close to Danny's current stats.The shot went straight through.And Danny didn't stop there.He funneled all 45 points of Strength into his legs and exploded forward, launching himself at Lisa like a cannon shot.She caught it too late, throwing her arms up on pure reflex.With her meridians severed, internal energy was off the table entirely. Whatever came next, she'd have to block with pure physical strength.But the whole point of internal energy over external force was channeling that energy into greater destructive output. Stripped of that edge,

"Sir, everyone's arrived."Zhou Shouzhen reported in to Magistrate Whitmore."Good." Whitmore rose, picked the jade-green county seal off the table, and tucked it away."Everything in position?"Zhou nodded. "Ready, sir.""Instructor Woods and Sergeant Doyle arrived with their men.""The office's grand formation is already active. If Cutter or Frank turn out compromised too, we can suppress all of them together."Whitmore took a breath. "Good. Let's go."They left the study and headed for the front hall."Apologies for the late hour."Whitmore stepped into the hall, greeted his guests, and took the seat at the head of the room."I called you all here tonight because something strange has happened up in the northern mountains.""The tiger demon still hasn't been dealt with, and now this. What a mess."He shook his head, letting his gaze settle on Walter Lin.The head of Ironwood School had always carried a spotless reputation across Ashford County. Grain handed out to the poor during h