Returning to the Mysterious Era

"You!" The woman took a step forward.

The man in sunglasses, who had been silent until now, also moved. He was clearly the leader of the three, and the woman in the vest stopped in her tracks.

"Matthew is the heir to the Connan Company, a vassal of Ace of Spades. Why are you involving yourself when this is between us, Duststorm, and Ace of Spades?" The man in sunglasses seemed to enjoy saying somewhat reasonable things before a fight.

"It's not by choice. I was forcibly dragged into this," Cassius's expression didn't so much as flicker. "Your assassins seemed to want to take me out along with everyone else on that riverside road. I had no choice but to defend myself." He spread his hands and continued, "I think you owe me an apology for dragging my innocent self into this mess. After all, we were having a nice chat in the car only to have a bunch of armed idiots ambush us. It was quite a mood killer."

"Hahaha!" The woman in the vest barked out an angry laugh. "After killing our Duststorm members, you still dare to demand an apology? You really don't know your place!"

"I think you're the one who doesn't know her place," Cassius said coldly. Next to him, the magician Bass sneered mockingly.

Bass had witnessed Cassius's terrifying destructive power and combat ability firsthand in the Anta Mountains. He had seen a neo-human with similar strength to himself get blown to pieces, while a nearly one-ton metal machine was sent flying, crashing into a three-story building.

Bass admired the strong and despised the ignorant and the weak. In his eyes, these three arrogant humans clearly fell into the latter.

"Heh…" The previously expressionless man in sunglasses started to laugh. Surprisingly, he politely gave a self-introduction. "Allow me to introduce myself: Number Fifteen of Duststorm, also known as 'Viper,' and I will be the one to kill you!"

A shadow flashed past Cassius at a speed too fast for the eye to follow, before quickly returning to its original position.

The man in sunglasses tossed his dagger into the air, catching it each time by the handle with a dangerous precision, as if he might grab the blade by accident and die on the spot. "Where is your caution? My blade is coated with the deadly poison from the silro viper in the northern jungles of the United States of Yana. A tiny cut is enough to kill someone in thirty seconds."

He turned to look ahead, but Cassius looked completely unfazed, staring at him as if he were the idiot. Cassius then reached into his coat and pulled on a pair of velvet white gloves. The man in sunglasses squinted at them. Upon closer inspection, he noticed a black symbol on the back—the Jack of Diamonds.

"Jack of Diamonds? An upper-level member of the Ace of Spades assassination division? Didn't we just take one of them out recently? How is there another one?" The man in sunglasses frowned. "It doesn't matter. Even if you're the Jack of Diamonds, you'll still die from the silro viper's poison!"

"Sorry to tell you this, but no matter how deadly the poison, it still has to penetrate my flesh. How can it do that if it can't even scratch my skin?" Cassius said lazily. He revealed a tear in his clothing at his waist where there was a faint black mark on a solid, rock-hard expanse of white muscle. He flicked a metal playing card across it, lightly scraping the black mark away, leaving nothing but smooth skin behind.

"Impossible! My dagger is sharp enough to cut through thin steel! How can it not pierce human skin?" The man in sunglasses looked incredulous. His hand shook, almost cutting himself with the poisoned blade mid-throw.

"Even though I felt like you were moving at a snail's pace, your speed is fast compared to ordinary people. In fact, you've surpassed human limits in speed alone. Interesting. Did Duststorm give you some sort of special technique or power?" As Cassius spoke, he shrugged off his jacket, in preparation of testing the strength of the people before him. The man with sunglasses, who called himself Duststorm's Number Fifteen, clearly had power and speed beyond normal human capabilities.

"Haha, the strength of this organization is beyond your imagination!" The man in the trench coat clapped his hands. "Come out, and take him down!"

Suddenly, seven to eight figures came out of the bushes on both sides. They were all burly men dressed exactly like the Duststorm operatives Cassius had encountered before. Four or five of them wielded sharp daggers, while two others pulled black handguns from their waists, the sunlight glinting off the barrels.

"Think you're strong? Let's see if you're tough enough to stop these bullets! Shoot him!" The man in the trench coat glared at Cassius from a safe distance away. Immediately, the two gunmen aimed their barrels at Cassius.

"Bass, hold my jacket. Your psychokinesis is drained from this morning, so hold off on using it for now. Stay back." Cassius grabbed Bass and yanked him behind him.

The next moment, gunshots rang out as several bullets sliced through the air at high speed.

Cassius stepped forward, the ground trembling beneath his foot. In an instant, he shot out like an arrow, charging directly at the Duststorm group, taking the bullets head-on.

The bullets were nothing more than a nuisance to him. During his second-level accelerated blood flow, he had endured them and escaped with minor scrapes. Now, having reached his third-level accelerated blood flow and trained in hardening Qigong, they barely scratched him.

Bullets struck his rock-hard muscles, leaving nothing but white marks before bouncing onto the ground, clinking faintly.

"Hiss…" A stream of white vapor escaped from Cassius's nostrils.

His body swelled, growing visibly larger, as he took another step forward. Though he hadn't unleashed his terrifying full potential, he had activated his hardening Qigong. His white muscles piled together, forming an even more powerful physique.

In the blink of an eye, Cassius was in front of the man in sunglasses. His right hand clawed for his throat.

Bang!

The man in the trench coat suddenly punched, his fist slamming into Cassius's forearm. The man in sunglasses reacted immediately, and instead of retreating, charged forward. With incredible speed, he threw his entire body into Cassius's chest, stabbing the sharp tip of his dagger toward his abdomen.

Clang!

The dagger struck his skin but no matter how hard the man pushed, it couldn't pierce through. He might as well have been stabbing solid iron.

"Your speed has surpassed human limits, but your strength is only at the fifth tier of the Federation's system, and don't get me started on your technique. It seems you haven't trained in any proper basic combat arts, just some combat moves here and there. You're not that much better than someone at the fourth tier." Cassius was completely unbothered in his calm evaluation. "I can tell you're holding something back. Why not show me your trump card?"

Boom!

Cassius stomped the ground, driving his knee brutally into the man's abdomen and he skidded several meters back. Cassius barely missed a step as he spun and slapped away the woman in the vest's fist, a sharp smack resounding. He then delivered a lightning-fast roundhouse kick that sent the trench coat man flying through the air.

All of this happened in just a matter of seconds. The rest of the Duststorm thugs didn't even have time to react! Two of the gunmen were still in the midst of sluggishly reloading their magazines.

"Which one of you shot at my crotch just now?" Cassius growled, his face dark and ominous. He was supposed to attend a meeting with the Ace of Spades later, but he had been ambushed by these fools. He had even stripped himself down so they had a clear target, but someone still insisted on aiming for a place they shouldn't have. Now, Cassius was truly furious.

"Why don't you get a taste of the silro viper's poison yourselves?" With two fingers, Cassius flicked a metal card. His right hand blurred, and the sharp whistle of a blade cut through the air.

The playing card sliced through the air in a deadly arc, slashing one gunman across the waist before spinning toward another's crotch, finally embedding itself in a tree trunk behind them.

"Ah! " The gunman screamed, clutching his wound. The one behind him made no sound as he crumpled into a sitting position, his face turning a deep, unhealthy purple.

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