Solving the case: Combining the police dog's olfactory genes at the beginning

The trajectory of this slash was a diagonal line from bottom to top. As the blade tip passed through, it left a silvery-white arc in the air. The speed was so fast that the human eye could only see a white line.

Luo Fei's abdomen tucked back slightly.

His waist arched back less than three inches, the movement so small it looked as if he had simply taken a deep breath and pulled his stomach back in.

Kojiro Saki's knife tip grazed past the front of his jacket zipper. The chill from the knife tip penetrated the fabric of the jacket, and he could feel the coldness even through the clothes, but the knife tip did not touch his body.

The third blow came right away.

Saki Kojiro gritted his teeth, gripped the sword with both hands, paused in mid-air, and then slashed horizontally. This strike aimed for Luo Fei's neck, the blade sweeping from left to right with even greater speed and force than the previous two strikes.

His arm muscles bulged the moment he swung the sword, the cuffs of his kimono stretched taut by the muscles, and his wrist twisted more dramatically than the previous two slashes, the blade drawing a horizontal white arc in the air.

Luo Fei tilted his neck back slightly. His head tilted back less than ten centimeters, his chin lifted, and his Adam's apple was exposed.

The blade grazed less than a centimeter in front of his Adam's apple, the wind from the blade stinging the skin on his chin, but it didn't touch his flesh.

Three knives.

All three strikes missed their mark.

Saki Kojiro's breathing was erratic. He unleashed three consecutive slashes, each with his full strength, but Luo Fei simply shifted his body slightly, tucked in his stomach, and tilted his head back, neutralizing all of his attacks.

Throughout the entire process, Luo Fei kept his hands in his pockets, never taking them out. He didn't look like he was dodging a deadly blade; it was more like someone dodging mud thrown by a child on the street.

The chat room exploded with comments again.

"Hands in pockets!! Captain Luo's hands were always in his pockets!!!"

"Three stabs! He dodged all three! Is he even human?"

"How did Captain Luo manage to dodge that person's attack when they were so fast?"

"Even my eyes can't keep up with his, how could Captain Dao Luo's eyes possibly?"

"Captain Luo, why don't you fight back?! What are you doing with your hands in your pockets?"

"This is the difference in strength. Even when they used their full power, they couldn't even touch Captain Luo's clothes."

"Did you guys see that afterimage just now? That person really left an afterimage when they rushed forward."

"What's the use of having afterimages? You still can't hit Captain Luo."

"Is Captain Luo's dodging ability some kind of cheat code?"

Kojiro Saki took three steps back. His feet stomped heavily on the bluestone slabs, each step making a dull thud between the soles of his shoes and the slabs.

He raised the knife again, holding it horizontally in front of him, the tip pointing in Luo Fei's direction, but his fingers began to tremble again. This time the trembling was more pronounced than before; his entire palm was shaking, and the blade vibrated in the air.

Cold sweat beaded on his forehead. Sweat seeped from his hairline, trickling down his temples, and a few drops ran into his eyes, but he dared not blink.

Those three strikes were already his three strikes with all his might.

He refused to believe it—how could Luo Fei dodge his three full-force slashes with such a small movement? At such close range, the speed of the blade was already approaching the limit of human reaction speed. A normal person's visual nerves simply didn't have time to transmit the information they saw to their brain. By the time they saw him swing the blade, it had already struck them.

But every time, Luo Fei was able to dodge with the smallest possible amount of force just before the blade was about to strike, a reaction speed that seemed impossible for the human nervous system.

Kojiro Saki took a deep breath.

He knew he couldn't continue fighting like this. Ordinary slashes were useless against this man; his opponent's dodging abilities were completely beyond his comprehension.

If he wants to leave this square alive, he must use that move—the move that Hana-chanmaru taught him, which he said should not be used unless absolutely necessary.

Swallows return.

The name of this move comes from an ancient legend. Yagyu Jubei, the founder of Yagyu Shinkage-ryu, once faced an opponent who was extremely fast and agile in a duel, and all his slashes could not touch his opponent.

Finally, Yagyu Jubei unleashed a technique he had never shown before—spinning his body 360 degrees in mid-air, using the centrifugal force of the rotation to push the speed of his sword to its limit in an instant, slashing down from the air so fast that even a swallow couldn't dodge it.

The opponent was cleaved from head to toe by that single strike, and from then on, the move was named Swallow Return. A sword technique that even a swallow couldn't dodge, let alone a human.

However, this move has a fatal flaw—it consumes too much energy. Using Swallow Return requires concentrating all the strength of the body on the two actions of spinning and swinging the sword, and after a single slash, most of the stamina will be instantly depleted.

If this strike misses the enemy, the user will be in an extremely dangerous situation, without even the strength to escape.

When Hana Yukanmaru taught him, he said, "The Swallow Return is the last resort to save your life. Don't use it unless absolutely necessary, because once you use it, you're gambling with your own life."

Now is the last resort.

Kojiro Saki gripped the sword with both hands, the blade held horizontally in front of him, the tip pointing upwards towards the sky. He glanced at Luo Fei, whose hands were still in his pockets, standing five paces away watching him, his expression unchanged.

That lazy look in his eyes seemed to say—what other tricks do you have up your sleeve? Bring them on!

Kojiro Saki gritted his teeth.

He pushed off the ground with both feet, and his whole body sprang up from the spot. Not forward, but upward. His body rose nearly two meters into the air, the hem of his kimono billowing behind him, and then, with a sudden burst of power from his waist and abdomen, his body began to spin in the air.

It didn't just spin once, it spun twice—a full 720-degree aerial rotation.

As he spun, the knife in his hand spun along with him. The blade drew concentric circles of silvery-white sword flowers in the air, layer upon layer, which, from a distance, looked like a silver flower blooming in mid-air.

Each sword flower is a streak of light left by the blade as it cuts through the air at high speed. These streaks of light instantly form an impenetrable net of blades.

The flashes of light in mid-air lasted less than 0.3 seconds before all the light merged into one.

A straight white blade of light slashed down from mid-air, its edge aimed directly at the center of Luo Fei's skull, its speed and force reaching the limits of human capability.

As the blade descended, it emitted a sharp whistling sound. The sound was no longer the sound of metal cutting through the air, but rather like a high-frequency shriek that pierced the eardrums painfully.

The speed of this strike was indeed extreme, so fast that even the live stream camera couldn't capture the complete trajectory of the blade; the screen only showed a white streak of light slashing down from the sky. Luo Fei watched the blade descend without even blinking.

He took a half step back with his right foot. Just half a step. His heel touched the bluestone slab, his center of gravity shifted less than twenty centimeters to the right and back, and his shoulder tilted slightly to the side.

The blade that cleaved down from the sky sliced ​​through him less than two centimeters away, grazing the tip of his nose, and the wind from the blade blew the stray hairs on his forehead backward.

The knife struck the ground.

The blade struck the bluestone slab with a loud clang. Stone chips flew everywhere, and a finger-width crack was cleaved in the slab, extending nearly a meter from the point of impact.

The pebbles and volcanic ash were jolted up by the wind and scattered into a cloud of grayish-white smoke in the air.

Kojiro Saki landed on his feet, his knees buckling from the impact. His hands were still gripping the hilt of his sword, the blade embedded in a crack in the stone slab. He swayed, his breathing heavy, like that of an ox that had run for miles.

Swallow Return drained most of his strength; his arm muscles trembled violently, his calves began to weaken, and sweat dripped from his chin to the ground.

But he couldn't care less about any of that. He suddenly looked up at Luo Fei.

Luo Fei stood less than three steps away from him, his hands still in his pockets, without a single wound on his body, not even a single wrinkle on his coat.

He was looking down at the crack in the ground, then he raised his eyelids to look at Kojiro Saki, a look of disappointment on his face.

"That's it?"

Luo Fei's voice carried an undisguised contempt, and when he uttered those two words, his tone was as casual as if he were commenting on a bowl of mediocre ramen.

Kojiro Saki's face turned bright red. His eyes were bloodshot, with a few thin blood vessels appearing on the whites of his eyes. His lips trembled as he tried to say something, but he couldn't utter a word.

Luo Fei pulled his right hand out of his pocket.

This action caused Kojiro Saki's pupils to contract sharply. He looked at Luo Fei's hand, the hand that had just thrown the knife to the ground; the fingers were long and slender, the knuckles distinct, and it didn't look like a murderous hand.

But it was this very hand that had just crushed Hana Yukanmaru's wrist bones like a hydraulic clamp.

“Now,” Luo Fei flexed the five fingers of his right hand, his knuckles making a few crisp cracking sounds as he bent them, “now it’s my turn.”

The moment the words left his mouth, Luo Fei pushed off the ground with both feet.

He stomped his right foot hard on the bluestone slab, causing the volcanic ash on the slab to explode into a cloud of grayish-white smoke. He was like a stone launched by a slingshot, rushing towards Saki Kojiro at an impenetrable speed.

His body left a straight afterimage in mid-air, stretching from the starting point all the way to in front of Saki Kojiro without any transition, as if space had been compressed.

Kojiro Saki's eyes widened to their maximum.

He saw Luo Fei rushing towards him, but his body had no time to react.

His knife was still embedded in the crack in the stone slab, impossible to pull out; his legs were weak from the exhaustion of his Swallow Return technique, making it difficult to take a step; his arms were still trembling, making it impossible to lift them. All he could do was watch helplessly as Luo Fei's body crashed into him.

Then Luo Fei's body bumped into him.

It's not with fists, it's not with feet, it's with the whole body.

Luo Fei's shoulder slammed directly into Sasaki Kojiro's chest. It wasn't an ordinary impact; it was a powerful slam with terrifying force.

The impact sounded like a car crashing into a wall. In that instant, Kojiro Saki's chest cavity endured an impact he could not resist at all. His sternum creaked and bent under his skin. The pressure on his ribs exceeded their limits. Although they did not break, small cracks appeared on the bones.

Kojiro Saki's body was sent flying by the impact.

His feet left the ground, and he flew backward like a kite with a broken string, his kimono billowing in the wind. He flew at least three meters, his body tracing an arc in the air before beginning to fall.

But he did not land.

Luo Fei chased after him the instant he flew out. Luo Fei pushed off the ground with both feet, his body skimming the ground as he sped forward, even faster than Sasaki Kojiro.

As Saki Kojiro's body flew into the air, Luo Fei caught up with him, stretched out his right hand, spread his five fingers, and grabbed Saki Kojiro's collar.

Luo Fei suddenly pulled his wrist back.

Saki Kojiro's flying body was forcefully pulled back, and his body was flipped 180 degrees in mid-air, changing from facing the sky to facing the ground.

Luo Fei pulled him close to him, bringing the two of them to within a foot of each other. Saki Kojiro could clearly see the cold, sharp light in Luo Fei's eyes.

Luo Fei threw out his right fist.

The first punch landed squarely on Kojiro Saki's left cheek. The sound of his knuckles striking his cheekbone was crisp and dull, like a stone hitting a piece of wood.

The punch sent Kojiro Saki's face twisting to the right, his lip breaking against his teeth, a few drops of blood splattering from the corner of his mouth, and the capillaries under his skin rupturing instantly, leaving a dark red bruise on his skin.

The second punch landed immediately on the same spot. Luo Fei's fist retracted less than ten centimeters before striking again, this time with three times the force of the first punch.

The punch swelled up in Kojiro Saki's left eye socket, and his eyelid turned bluish-purple in an instant, leaving his eye only able to squint into a slit.

The third punch landed on the right cheek, the fourth on the chin, and the fifth on the bridge of the nose.

Luo Fei threw seven or eight punches in quick succession. Each punch was so fast that it was difficult to see clearly. His fists left blurry afterimages in the air, and the sound of each punch hitting flesh echoed across the square like a series of dull drumbeats.

Kojiro Saki's face was completely deformed by the continuous heavy blows. His nose was crooked, his lips were split, his two front teeth were loosened, and the skin on his entire face turned into a patchwork of blue and purple, so swollen that he was almost unrecognizable.

The final punch.

Luo Fei pulled his right arm back as far as he could, clenching his fist so tightly that his knuckles turned white, and then he threw out the heaviest and most direct straight punch.

The punch landed squarely on the center of Kojiro Saki's face.

The punch sent Kojiro Saki's head snapping back, but with Luo Fei's left hand holding him back, he couldn't run, so all the impact was absorbed by his neck. (End of Chapter)