Chapter Eighteen: The Death of the Dragon King

  Xiao Ziyang, who was watching from a distance, let out a sigh and quietly retreated. Taking advantage of the applause, he slipped down from the roof and withdrew outside the inn.

  Everyone in Tielong Wuguan stood behind Zheng Xiao Yang, they didn't see that the seven apertures on their master's head were bleeding profusely.

  The applause of the crowd in the martial arts hall had not yet subsided when a loud and arrogant laugh suddenly came from Cao Tianhao's house.

  With a loud laugh, Cao Tianhao burst into the house, leaving behind an afterimage, and pounced on Zheng Xiaoyang once again.

  The Iron-Backed Dragon King did not charge at his opponent with a mighty roar as his subordinates had imagined.

  He stood in place, awkwardly parrying his opponent's lightning-fast waist knife.

  Three knives, the third knife, amidst Cao Tianhao's maniacal laughter, the Iron-Backed Dragon King's head flew high into the sky under the incredulous gaze of the crowd in the martial arts hall!

  When the iron-backed dragon king's skull flew into the sky, Xiao Ziyang had already left the inn. When he saw Zheng Xiaoyang's seven orifices gushing out blood, he knew he was defeated, and a wave of sadness surged in his heart, the sorrow of being a fellow external family martial artist.

  The external skill of the Iron Back Dragon King has reached its peak, except for some innate talents and those born with divine power, practicing external family kung fu to this level is already at the extreme limit, there is no way forward.

  But for a high-level internal martial artist, having reached this realm, there is still a very long way to go.

  Iron-backed Dragon King seemed formidable just now, but in fact, when the two knives intersected, he had already been invaded by his opponent's internal force into his viscera and suffered an internal injury.

  Seven orifices bleeding, it means his internal injury is deep, and he has become a sheep waiting to be slaughtered!

  Xiao Ziyang slipped out of the Fulei Inn and made his way to a residential house on a path leading to the city wall, where he snuck in and climbed up onto the roof.

  Xiao Ziyang opened the package and unfolded the folding bow he had just bought, stringing it up.

  He then took out the arrows one by one and placed them in front of him on the roof ridge for easy access.

  Finally, Xiao Ziyang took out a cylindrical iron rod about the length of a foot and the diameter of an inch from his bosom. This thing was one of the three things that he had found in his parents' legacy that absolutely should not have appeared in his own home.

  That day he didn't know what it was, so he often held it in his hand and played with it. Once, he inadvertently pressed the iron rod's end mechanism, and with a light "click" sound, several objects popped out from the gap on the side of the iron rod, startling him.

  After several studies, he finally figured out its use. It turned out to be an extremely delicate hand crossbow!

  A crossbow arm pops out from the gap on both sides of the iron rod, and you only need to gently move the crossbow arm forward, and a mechanism will lock the crossbow arm in place.

  A three-inch long iron box popped out from under the iron rod, which contained twenty-seven featherless crossbow arrows. Behind the iron box, near the tail end of the iron rod, was a special handle for grasping.

  In front of the iron box, a small hole will appear. The inner wall of the small hole is hexagonal, but it is unknown what this small hole is used for.

  He soon discovered that this crossbow was exquisite, but it couldn't be cocked and was completely unusable.

  He studied it for a long time and inferred that the method of stringing this crossbow should be related to those six small hexagonal holes with unknown uses.

  He rummaged through his home again and finally found an object that was shaped like the character "zhi", made of fine steel, with a six-sided half-inch long small mouth at one end of the "zhi" shape, which just happened to fit perfectly into the strange small hole on the hand crossbow.

  He fiddled with it again and finally figured out that the zigzag-shaped steel thing was actually a winch. By putting one end into the small hole on the crossbow and turning it, he could tighten the string on the crossbow.

  This crossbow is only about a foot long, but the bolts it shoots are extremely powerful and can rival those of a strong bow of ten stones!

  What's even more frightening is that this crossbow shoots three arrows at a time, with the finished product flying out in the shape of a character, and these three arrows have a sequence, some fast, some slow, often shooting first and arriving last, shooting later but arriving first!

  That's nothing, this small hand crossbow is actually a repeating crossbow that can fire three shots in a row, making it a top-notch high-end product. At close range, it's extremely difficult to dodge.

  This crossbow was also his reliance on daring to pull out Cao Tianhao's teeth tonight.

  Xiao Ziyang opened the crossbow, wound up the bowstring with a pulley, and then tore off a piece of his sleeve to cover his face. He quietly crouched down on the rooftop.

  Not long after, the cries of killing in the Folei Inn gradually subsided. A gentle breeze blew by, and Xiao Ziyang smelled a faint scent of blood.

  In the distance, a figure slowly emerged from the street. As he drew closer, Xiao Ziyang saw by the light that it was a group of horse bandits from the Iron Cavalry Association.

  Xiao Ziyang carefully observed Cao Tianhao walking ahead, seeing that he was covered in blood all over his body, but his footsteps were steady, it seemed that the blood on him belonged to others.

  At this time, his right hand was empty and hung beside him, unable to exert any force, apparently injured not lightly in the previous exchange with Zheng Xiaoyang.

  The waist knife was held in his left hand, Xiao Ziyang carefully looked at his knife-holding posture, and there was a hint of awkwardness.

  Xiao Ziyang smiled slightly.

  Walking beside Cao Tianhao were Cao Tianjie and Cao Tianyu, the bald-headed doorman was accompanied by several extremely robust horse thieves surrounding the three.

  More than twenty horse bandits, all with bloodstains on their bodies, most of them walked with a vigorous stride. Those who were wounded also had an air of nonchalance; they were obviously seasoned bandits accustomed to licking the blade clean after a kill.

  Among the horse thieves, however, there were three people who didn't fit in - three women who were surrounded and pressed by several of the horse thieves.

  The distance was still far, and the sky was also dark. He couldn't see the faces of these three women clearly, but he could see that all three had a rather deep foundation in martial arts from their footsteps.

  Xiao Ziyang pondered: Why did the Iron Riders bring three women with them when they were fleeing for their lives? Could it be that the Iron Riders had offended Hanmo Fortress and these three women were involved? Were they going to use these three women as hostages?

  He lay in ambush here, just wanting to take the opportunity to kill Tie Qidong, the second master of the Iron Rider Association, and fulfill his many years' wish. As for Cao Tianhao, he had already seen this person's martial arts skills earlier and had given up on him.

  After seeing these three women, Xiao Ziyang changed his mind and decided to rescue them first.

  He held the crossbow with the head down and the handle up, lightly leaning it against the roof ridge, then lightly grasped the longbow, swiftly and silently picking up an arrow from the roof ridge and biting it in his mouth. He picked up four more arrows, each tucked into the gaps between the fingers of his left hand holding the bow. One arrow was quickly placed on the string, and he drew the bow to half-full. He shot out the first arrow as soon as he opened the bow, using only two breaths of time.

  If a master archer were to see Xiao Ziyang's series of movements, they would definitely be shocked; this was clearly a military secret technique, the starting form for the consecutive arrow shot.

  His linked arrow technique was learned from his sworn father, Lei Da Biao Tou. His sworn father had enlisted in the army when he was young and spent several years eating imperial rations, laying down a foundation of external family kung fu skills during that time.

  The Iron Riders approached, thirty zhang, twenty zhang, ten zhang... Now's the time! Xiao Ziyang suddenly stood up straight, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh... Six arrows pierced the air in rapid succession, all shot out by him within a single breath.