The thug's roar, "I'll gut you!", was still echoing in the narrow alley, but to Lin Hao, the sound was already stretching, distorting, falling away as if from a great distance.
The world, which had been moving at the frantic pace of a late-night assault, suddenly dropped into a thick, clear, slow-motion syrup.
It was his new senses. His [Level 4: Bone Forged] perception and [Level 5: Blood Vitality] awareness were working in perfect concert.
It was like a supercomputer kicking into overdrive, processing every single micro-expression, every particle of dust, every photon of the dim yellow light.
He saw Scarface lunge.
The man was a blur of rage to a normal person. To Lin Hao, he was an open book, written in large, simple print.
He saw the man's right foot, shod in a worn-out sneaker, push off the cracked pavement.
He saw the tiny pebbles that were kicked up, hanging in the air like suspended stars.
He saw the man's arm, driven by sloppy, untrained, mortal muscles, begin its telegraphed, predictable arc toward his stomach.
He saw the man's face, a grotesque mask of fury, his eyes wide, his lips pulled back from yellowed teeth, already savoring the victory.
And he saw the switchblade. A cheap, serrated, pathetic piece of metal, crawling through the air.
It was all... so... slow.
Lin Hao didn't move his feet. He didn't dodge. He didn't even flinch.
He simply raised his right hand.
It was a casual, almost bored gesture. He turned his hand, palm out, and placed it directly in the path of the oncoming knife. He was going to catch it.
Scar-face saw the movement. In the last, super-charged microsecond of his lunge, his brain registered the kid's "stupid" defense.
A sneer of pure, cruel triumph flashed across his face. He was going to pin this moron's hand to his own stomach!
Tch-BEND!
The sound was not the wet shink of a blade sinking into flesh.
It was a sick, jarring, metallic thud followed by a high-pitched twang.
Scar-face's lunge, driven by his full body weight, stopped dead.
His eyes, which had been wide with rage, now stretched even wider, into perfect circles of pure, brain-breaking, physics-defying disbelief.
His knife tip had hit the center of the kid's open palm.
It had not gone in.
It had not scratched the skin.
Lin Hao's [Level 1: Iron Skin], nourished for a full day by the passive flow of [Level 5: Blood Vitality] Qi, was no longer just "tough."
It was a supernatural defense.
The cheap, mortal-grade steel, meeting an object far harder and more resilient than itself, had done the only thing it could.
It had bent. The tip of the blade was folded back on itself at a perfect, useless ninety-degree angle, ruined.
The force of the man's own attack, with nowhere to go, was sent vibrating back up his arm, making his wrist and elbow scream in agony.
"Nn... Nnno..." Scar-face whispered, his mind shattered. He was still staring at his ruined knife, which was pressed harmlessly against the kid's completely unmarked palm.
This was impossible. This was a dream.
"You're too loud," Lin Hao said. His voice was a calm, cold whisper, barely audible.
He didn't make a fist. He didn't wind up for a punch.
His hand, which was still pressed against the man's knife-hand, simply... pushed.
It was a simple, open-palmed shove to the man's chest.
But it was not a mortal push.
It was the combined, perfectly-tuned power of [Level 2: Muscle Weaving] and [Level 3: Tendon Connection], anchored by a [Level 4: Bone Forged] skeleton.
It was a single, perfect, explosive chain of kinetic energy. And it was ignited by a single, internal surge of [Level 5: Blood Vitality] Qi.
It was a new kind of physics. It was a cultivator's power.
WHUMP.
The sound was not a slap. It was a deep, wet, sickening thud. It was the sound of a sledgehammer hitting a watermelon.
Scar-face didn't even have time to grunt. His eyes, still wide with disbelief, bulged.
It wasn't a push. It was a detonation.
He felt an invisible, irresistible force slam into his sternum. He felt his ribs, thick, strong bones, snap like a bundle of dry twigs.
The air in his lungs didn't just whoosh out; it was expelled, exploding from his mouth in a fine, pink mist of blood and spittle.
His feet left the ground.
He wasn't just pushed back; he was launched. He became a projectile. He flew backward, his body spinning, a boneless ragdoll in a dark hoodie.
He didn't stumble. He skipped once, his back hitting the filthy pavement with a wet smack, before his momentum carried him the rest of the way.
CRACK!
His body, still moving at an impossible speed, slammed into the solid brick wall at the alley's entrance, ten meters away.
The sound of his skull and spine hitting the solid brick was final and absolute.
He slumped to the ground, a boneless heap of ruined meat. A dark, wet spray of blood marked the wall just above his head.
He did not move. He did not groan. He was instantly, violently, unconscious.
The alley was plunged back into a ringing, profound silence.
The only sounds were the distant, unheeded city sirens, and the clatter... clatter... clink of the bent switchblade.
It had flown from Scar-face's nerveless, shattered hand and was now skittering across the pavement, coming to a stop by Lin Hao's feet.
The other two thugs were frozen.
The one with the crowbar and the one with the cracked knuckles, they were just... staring.
Their minds, filled with thoughts of easy money and violence, had gone completely blank. They had not just seen their leader get beaten.
They had seen him get deleted. They had seen a small college kid, with one lazy push, turn a 200-pound man into a missile.
Their faces were identical masks of pure, primal, animal terror.
The wiry one's crowbar, suddenly too heavy to hold, slipped from his trembling, sweaty fingers and hit the ground with a loud CLANG.
The sound made both of them jump, and they let out a small, whimpering gasp.
They were no longer predators. They were meat, and they had just met the butcher.