"Don't... I'm begging you, let him go..."
"Little Xuan, it's our fault..."
Watching the three men approach Qin Xuan viciously with daggers in hand, a flicker of despair crossed Su Qing's eyes.
"Qin Xuan!"
Su Zhiyun's heart was filled with ashes of despair. She never thought her kindness in saving someone would end up harming her mother and Qin Xuan.
At this point, regret was meaningless.
"Cui Mingyan, I'm begging you, let them go..."
"We'll give you all our supplies, please, just let them go..."
Su Zhiyun used her last ounce of strength to grab Cui Mingyan's smooth, pale ankle, crying out weakly.
"Heh heh..."
"Little beauty, you should be more concerned about yourself."
"Such beautiful, long legs. It would be a real shame to sever your tendons."
Lu Wenhao wore a look of mock regret as he approached the mother and daughter, dagger in hand and a wicked smile on his face.
"Ah..."
"Aaaah..."
Just as Lu Wenhao bent down and reached for Su Zhiyun's ankle, three blood-curdling screams erupted from behind him.
His extended Divine Sense clearly detected an extremely fast figure rushing toward him.
"Watch out!"
Caught off guard and unsure of his opponent's strength, Lu Wenhao chose not to fight head-on.
He leaped into the sea and swam quickly toward a small raft floating a dozen meters away.
"Ah..."
Just as Lu Wenhao hit the water, a scream rang out. His companion, Tong Qing, a step slower than him, had been stabbed in the heart by Qin Xuan.
"Huh...?"
It all happened too fast. So fast that no one, except Lu Wenhao, had time to react—not even Cui Mingyan, whose smile was still frozen on her face.
"You... How are you alright?"
"As long as you were breathing the air, you couldn't have avoided my Poisonous Ability. It's impossible for you to be unharmed."
Cui Mingyan's eyes were filled with confusion as she stared at Qin Xuan, who had just killed four of her companions and was now walking toward her, a blood-drenched dagger in his hand.
Her Poisonous Ability was colorless and odorless, capable of covering a five-meter radius around her.
Those poisoned would remain conscious but would be completely weakened for an hour, unable to circulate their Spiritual Power or use their abilities.
Even she didn't know the antidote for her Poisonous Ability. She never imagined Qin Xuan would be immune to her poison.
"Does any of that matter now?"
Shrouded in Spiritual Power, Qin Xuan approached Cui Mingyan step by step, a slight smirk on his lips and a murderous glint in his eyes.
The [Demon's Eye] had shown that Cui Mingyan's poison had no antidote. The only defense was to take precautions beforehand, using Spiritual Power to shield one's mouth and nose to block the poison in the air.
"Wenhao!"
"Save me! We can take him on together..."
Seeing Qin Xuan advance, a terrified, pale-faced Cui Mingyan backed away, turning to shout for help from Lu Wenhao, who was swimming swiftly toward the small raft.
But she saw that Lu Wenhao had already used the waves to swim more than a dozen meters away.
Backed to the stern with nowhere to run, a flash of despair crossed Cui Mingyan's eyes. They instantly turned red as she looked pitifully at Qin Xuan.
"Big brother, please spare me. They forced me to do it."
"As long as you spare me, I'm willing to follow you, to be your servant..."
Seeing the cold, murderous intent in Qin Xuan's eyes, Cui Mingyan's eyes filled with tears as she choked out her pleas, looking utterly pitiful.
*Pfft...*
Before Cui Mingyan could finish her sentence, Qin Xuan's figure blurred, and a piercing pain shot through her chest.
She looked down in horror to see blood gushing from her chest, staining half of her white shirt.
"You..."
Cui Mingyan's eyes widened as she stared at Qin Xuan, unable to believe it. She had been one of the campus beauties at her university.
After she had humbled herself so completely, how could Qin Xuan bring himself to kill her?
"Such a beauty, yet you chose to be a villain!"
Qin Xuan watched Cui Mingyan with cold eyes, feeling not a shred of pity for the venomous woman.
From the way Cui Mingyan had been commanding the others, it was clear that even if she wasn't the captain of the group of six, she was a leader.
She was the type to do anything to achieve her goals.
A woman with no bottom line when it came to her own survival—how could Qin Xuan possibly keep someone like that by his side?
*Splash!*
With a light leap, Qin Xuan dove into the sea, heading in the direction of Lu Wenhao, who had already climbed onto his raft.
*Thump!*
Lu Wenhao glanced back toward Cui Mingyan's raft, only to see that Qin Xuan was no longer there.
A sense of foreboding grew rapidly in his heart.
He quickly grabbed a paddle, adjusted the raft's direction, and began paddling furiously with the waves.
"Not good, he's coming!"
He hadn't paddled far when his Divine Sense, extended in a ten-meter radius, detected a fluctuation of Spiritual Power under the water's surface, rapidly approaching him.
Startled, Lu Wenhao shot to his feet, secretly channeling his Spiritual Power as his gaze locked onto the direction the presence was coming from.
*Whoosh...*
Just as Lu Wenhao gathered his Spiritual Power, preparing to strike the fluctuation beneath the waves, Qin Xuan burst out from the water.
*Swish...*
Before Lu Wenhao could even unleash the Spiritual Power in his palm, he felt a slight tickle on his head.
A thin line of red blood trickled down from his wet hair, running down his forehead.
After killing Lu Wenhao with a single slash, Qin Xuan landed on the raft, picked up the backpack from the corpse, and dove back into the sea, swimming toward his own raft.
[F-Class Iron x35, Wood x25, Ocean Coins x30, Reinforced Tang Dao x1, Universal Key x1, Bread x2, Mineral Water x2.]
"So loaded?"
"Looks like you've spilled a lot of blood in just one day. You deserved to die!"
After swimming back to his raft, Qin Xuan thoroughly searched the backpacks of Lu Wenhao, Cui Mingyan, and the others.
He then unsheathed the Tang Dao he had just acquired and gave it a few swings.
"Not bad!"
"It feels much better than the dagger!"
Qin Xuan nodded slightly. The Tang Dao, found in Cui Mingyan's backpack, weighed about ten pounds and was much better to handle than the dagger.
"Qin Xuan!"
"Quick, help me. I feel terrible like this."
Lying prone on the raft, Su Zhiyun watched as Qin Xuan threw the bodies of Cui Mingyan's group overboard and began washing the bloodstains from the deck.
Then he raised the sail and moved away from the scene, showing no intention of helping them.
Qin Xuan ignored Su Zhiyun. Only after they were several miles away from the area did he lower the sail, letting the raft drift with the waves.
He didn't know if the smell of blood would attract sharks during this novice protection period, but it was always better to be safe than sorry.
If his raft encountered sharks, it would be game over.
"Su Zhiyun!"
"Since you don't listen to me, the captain, why don't you just be the captain from now on?"
Qin Xuan shot Su Zhiyun a displeased look before scooping up the limp and weak Su Qing in his arms and walking toward the bow.
"Little Xuan!"
"I'm sorry!"
"From now on, I promise I'll listen to you. I'll never act on my own again."
Seeing Qin Xuan's dark, unhappy expression, Su Qing felt a pang of panic. She rested her head gently against his chest and whispered softly.
This novel is available on "pawread.com".
If Qin Xuan hadn't been so vigilant today, she couldn't bear to imagine what would have happened to her and Little Yun.
Even though they had awakened abilities, if their tendons had been severed, they would have become nothing more than tools for Lu Wenhao and his men to vent their lust.
"Mm."
Qin Xuan nodded.
Letting Cui Mingyan onto the raft had been his way of teaching Su Qing and Su Zhiyun a lesson through a negative example.
He believed that after this incident, combined with what happened with Chen Daying and Zhang Chao, the two of them would finally shed their misplaced compassion.
Once they spent more time in the [Boundary Sea] and understood the rules of survival in this desperate place, he wouldn't have to worry about these trivial matters anymore.