Unbeatable! Invincible! Unparalleled!

"Shut up! I bought your chicken meat here yesterday and it caused me to feel drowsy to eventually fell asleep in class!" yelled a young man with short black hair. He bears an arrogant look to him.

"My teacher reprimanded me for that! Do you know how shameful that is for me?! Now compensate me a hundred coppers and I will let this matter go!" he shouted directly in front of grandma Ying, before his lips curled into a sneer.

"Otherwise..."

Just as he was still trying to finish his sentence, a loud 'pa' sound could be heard as he was slapped by grandma Ying which had immediately made him stumbled backwards two steps.

"You ruffian! How is that my fault? Are you dumb?!" yelled grandma Ying back towards that stupefied young man.

This grandma Ying was already in his 70's and had quite the temper as well. "This young man had picked the wrong person to vent his frustrations on..." thought Duan Li.

"Y-you! How dare you slap me?!" said the young man with an infuriated expression, "Are you blind old woman?! I am a student of the Jixue Knights Academy!" he shouted while flicking his white and blue uniform as his index finger pointing to the academy emblem on his right shoulder. The emblem had one sword and one saber crossing one another, with a shield as its background.

"Hah! Even if I'm deaf, I would still have slapped you the same! Now get out of here!!" replied grandma Ying angrily.

"Damned old woman!" yelled the young man as he stepped forward with raised hand seeming as if to slap back at grandma Ying.

"Stop!" shouted Duan Li, his voice was loud that it startled the young man which immediately halted his momentum.

The young man turned his head to look at the person who stopped him.

"Who are you?! Don't meddle in my business you peasant!" said the young man with an even more haughty look as he observed Duan Li's clothing. In his view, Duan Li is but a simple peasant.

"Well.. about that.. I have business with grandma Ying.." replied Duan Li slowly while giving an awkward smile as he continued, "If you hurt her, it would be difficult for me then..".

Hearing this, the haughty young man replied with disdain, "Hah! Then let me teach you a lesson first as an example!"

"Materialize!" he chanted as a sword appeared in his hand.

At first, Duan Li was surprised that a sword had materialized out of thin air. But, as he observed, in all honesty, this sword seems to be made of common grade that he frequently saw on the rack of a weapons store.

Noticing Duan Li's look towards his sword that he had materialize and the lack of reaction the latter had, the contemptious young man's face flushed red before yelling angrily, "What are you looking at?! Too surprised that cat's got your tongue?!".

"No.. no.." replied Duan Li while shaking his head slowly and continued "That is a great quality sword you have there!".

'Pu!' the young man choked.

Great quality sword? He himself knew that his sword was quite common that could be found anywhere. Thus, hearing Duan Li's compliment, coupled with that gaze of his that even hinted a sliver of disdain to his sword with that 'nothing special' look in his eyes, riled up the young man entirely!

"Y-you good for nothing peasant! How dare you humiliate me like this!" he shouted as he step towards Duan Li.

"No! Stop!" shouted grandma Ying in a terrified voice when she saw the situation started to spiral out of control.

Duan Li is the child of Meng Yue! If her son was hurt because of her, how could she face her next time?

"I'll chop off your arms so that you will remain disabled forever! HAHA!" laughed the young man as he swung his sword in a cutting motion. To him, a mere peasant losing an arm or two wouldn't really cause any issue.

Due to the suddenness of this situation, Duan Li still wasn't able to react properly at all. By the time the sword was swung halfway however, his ear ranged for a bit before that sword suddenly seems to slow down considerably.

How bizarre!

But taking this chance, knowing that there are no time for hesitation, Duan Li performed a single side step as he dodged the incoming strike beautifully.

'swoosh!'

"What?!" startled the young man. He just couldn't believe his eyes! In an instant before, he was sure that his sword would amputate the peasant's arm, yet in another instant, the latter suddenly moved so fast that his eyes couldn't follow as his attack was dodged seeming effortlessly.

"I.. managed to dodge?" said Duan Li to himself as he realized that time had returned to normal again.

Gritting his teeth, he swung his sword again. This time, he aimed for the knee. He thought that it must be due to pure luck that the peasant had managed to dodge his sword attack before!

This time, Duan Li knew that the young man was aiming for his legs and tried to dodge, but his reaction speed was still too slow that the sword had already reached halfway to chop off his legs!

"I won't be able to make it!" thought Duan Li as he panicked. Then, the ringing sound reappeared again as time slowed down to a snail's pace.

"Wha.. again?" he was entirely stumped by this bizarre phenomena of time slowing down! The ringing sounded just like when one had reached a certain depth while swimming.

Thus, taking this chance, Duan Li lifted his legs from harm's way. But this time he decided to retaliate!

Just as he successfully lifted his legs, he immediately stomped downwards on the body of the sword, pressing it to the ground with his weight. After his counter-attack was completed, time flowed normally again.

However, due to the sudden change in momentum, the young man's elbow snapped and twist in a horrendous way. A 'crack' sound could be heard.

Duan Li hadn't expected this outcome at all!

He had only meant to stop the young man from attacking, but instead got the latter's arm broken into a cripple!

"ARGHHH!" shouted the young man with agonized moans. "My arm! My arm!" he yelled out with a horrified look as tears started to churn out from his eyes.

'Hissss'

The crowd looking at this commotion from outside could not help but to be alarmed with surprises from the sudden reversal! At first they thought that it was over for Duan Li. Yet, at the next instant, Duan Li had crippled that arrogant young man's arm instead!

The hairs on their back stood straight as they shivered!

...

"Duan Li... practices martial arts?" they thought simultaneously. From what they knew, Duan Li was just someone who liked to be alone, to sleep and eat comfortably..

But now, he had a new side to him that the village folks didn't know about! This caused some of them to start looking at Duan Li in a new light. Some of them even had that look of awe and veneration!

"Hais.. I never knew.. who would have thought that all this while, Duan Li actually practices martial arts to this terrifying degree?.." said a villager.

"Me too.. so the reason why he had always liked to be alone is because he was practicing such martial arts.. perhaps he had long treaded the path of a warrior before we even knew it.." said another while shaking his head slowly.

Similar thoughts and conversation sprung up among the masses that watched this commotion.

Meanwhile, Duan Li was still standing still looking unfazed with the sword still stomped tightly to the ground beneath his legs. The crowd was awed by his calm composure.

In actuality however, Duan Li had not a sliver of clue as to what was happening at all! All he did was just waiting to be chopped up before time suddenly slowed down and he moved to dodge. Then, what was up with these crowds and their reaction? Aren't they exagerating themselves too much? Thought Duan Li feeling a bit weird.

In fact, if Duan Li were to become one of the crowds and watched how fast he had dodged the incoming attack on the last minute, even he too would be riled up like the rest of them.

...

"Bastard! BASTARD!!" shouted the young man as he glared at Duan Li with murderous intention. "I will remember this! This is NOT over!!" he retreated backwards slowly while tucking his broken arm, looking wary towards Duan Li in case the latter decided to attack him. As he retreated a safe distance, he quickly turned his back and ran away.

"Not good!.." said one of the villager, seemingly to remember something important as he slapped his forehead.

"What is it?" asked one of the crowds towards the man.

"That young man is a student of Jixue Knights Academy! A simple scuffle would be of no issue normally.. but now that one of their student has returned with broken arm.. the Academy is bound to take action!" replied the man as he wiped the sweat off his forehead.

A sense of foreboding came into the rest of the crowd as they too realized this. In fact, this is not the first time students from the Jixue Knights Academy were causing troubles, there were also others although of less intense than this one.

If not for the fact that they do not want to dishonour the name of the Academy, as it had trained numerous people into knighthood to serve the empire, they would have long pummelled the troublemakers themselves.

"Then.. what are we going to do? today's matter is not as simple as before! You guys too have seen how overboard that young man from the Jixue Knights Academy was right?" said a man from the crowd, evidently feeling displeased from the increasing brazenness of the troublemakers.

"Hais.. the only thing we can do now is tohelp report this matter to the village head, and hoped that the village head had some way to settle this in order to not escalate the matter further!" replied an elderly man.

The crowd nodded to the elder's suggestion as they quickly walked off together, heading into the direction of the village head residence.

...

"Duan Li my boy.. Are you okay?.. Are you hurt anywhere?" asked grandma Ying worriedly, "I'm sorry.. if only I hadn't slapped that haughty young man from before.. things wouldn't have turned into this.." her voice grew weak as she continued, "Now that I have troubled you, ohh no... What am I going to do.. how am I going to answer this to Meng Yue!".

Hearing the concern of grandma Ying, Duan Li's heart grew warm as he put up a smile and hugged grandma Ying.

"It's going to be fine, this Duan Li will naturally be able to handle it somehow.." said Duan Li softly.

"Are you sure you are going to be fine? If those bastards were to find trouble with you after this, this old grandma will cause a ruckus at their academy for nurturing degenarates!!" she said while clenching her teeth, but tears could be seen welling up the sides of her eyes.

Duan Li shook his head helplessly.. grandma Ying had always been protective of him since he was young. Somehow, he felt that grandma Ying was like his true grandmother..

...