"System, where is it?" Ye Chen asked aloud. His voice was incredibly tight with tension.
[Directly above you. Evasion highly recommended.]
The green canopy suddenly exploded into a shower of torn leaves.
A massive shadow dropped straight from the branches, completely blocking out the dim forest light. The air itself seemed to scream as the heavy beast fell.
Ye Chen did not think or hesitate for a single second. He let the thirty new points of Agility take complete control of his muscles. He threw his body backward with explosive and desperate force.
Claws the size of iron daggers slammed into the exact spot where he had just been kneeling. The solid stone riverbank shattered instantly into a thick cloud of gray powder.
"Too fast," Ye Chen gasped, quickly rolling back to his feet. "If I had not upgraded my speed earlier, I would be dead right now."
[Host is advised to maintain distance immediately. The target is highly lethal.]
Ye Chen looked closely at his attacker in the dim and shadowy forest light. It was a Wind Blade Wolf, but it was entirely wrong.
"What is that thing?" Ye Chen muttered aloud, his stomach turning at the sight. "That is definitely not a normal spirit beast."
It was not a majestic creature of the wild woods. It was a walking corpse. Its fur fell off in large rotting clumps, exposing pale and heavily diseased skin underneath.
Its eyes were milky and entirely dead white. Thick black blood oozed steadily from its dark gums. The creature moved with violent and completely unnatural twitches.
[Warning. Target is heavily corrupted. Lethal Demonic Qi detected in its bloodstream.]
"Corrupted?" Ye Chen took a defensive martial arts stance. "The Myriad Beast Forest is supposed to be a sacred hunting ground. It is not supposed to be a graveyard for the undead."
[Data suggests external manipulation of the local ecosystem. Proceed with extreme caution.]
"I do not have a choice," Ye Chen said coldly. "I am starving, and I need its energy to survive the night."
The corrupted wolf lunged forward without warning. It crossed the five meter distance in a single, terrifying heartbeat.
Ye Chen swung his right fist violently. He channeled his entire Stage 3 Body Tempering strength directly into the blow. His knuckles connected solidly with the beast's exposed and rotting ribcage.
It felt exactly like punching a solid brick wall.
Pain shot rapidly up Ye Chen's arm, radiating all the way to his shoulder. The wolf did not even flinch from the massive impact. It snapped its rotting jaws directly at his face.
Ye Chen ducked sharply under the bite, feeling the cold wind of its teeth graze his cheek. He needed a tactical edge immediately.
"System, analyze its hide right now!" Ye Chen shouted, backing away quickly. "Why is it so impossibly hard?"
[Target hide is fortified by compressed Demonic energy. Brute force at your current level is highly ineffective. Suggest precision strikes to vulnerable joints.]
"Precision," Ye Chen whispered to himself. He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second to focus his mind.
The deep knowledge from the Basic Fist Mastery flooded his conscious thoughts. He saw a glowing anatomical map of the beast in his mind's eye. He clearly saw the joints, the thin tendons, and the weak points of the bone structure.
The undead wolf lunged again.
Ye Chen stepped calmly to the side. He shifted his weight perfectly according to the ancient martial art instructions. He drove a Qi reinforced palm strike straight into the joint of the wolf's front left leg.
A sickening crack echoed loudly in the silent forest clearing. The corrupted wolf stumbled awkwardly into the mud.
"It feels pain," Ye Chen noted coldly. "Good. That means it can definitely be killed."
He began to aggressively circulate his Qi. The Chaos Body Tempering Art roared to life inside his fully repaired meridians. His fists began to glow with a faint, heavy golden light.
The wolf recovered its footing almost instantly. It opened its rotting maw extremely wide. The air around its mouth began to distort and compress violently.
"A wind blade," Ye Chen realized, his eyes widening in shock. "It can still use elemental magic."
He looked quickly down at his feet. He was heavily tangled in thick tree roots. The muddy riverbank offered absolutely no solid footing for a clean dodge. He could not escape the blast radius completely.
"I have to take the hit," Ye Chen decided, his voice devoid of fear.
Ye Chen twisted his torso violently. He offered his left shoulder to the beast while keeping his right arm primed for a lethal counterattack.
The crescent of compressed wind fired. It ripped through the humid air with a piercing, high pitched shriek.
The magic blade slammed directly into his shoulder. It sliced incredibly deep into the flesh, grating harshly against his collar bone. Warm blood sprayed brightly across the dark mossy ground.
"Argh!" Ye Chen gritted his teeth, completely refusing to scream. The pain was absolutely blinding.
But the sacrifice bought him the tiny opening he desperately needed. The wolf was momentarily off balance from the recoil of its own attack.
Ye Chen stepped deeply inside the creature's guard. He completely ignored his severely bleeding arm.
"My turn," Ye Chen roared.
He channeled every single ounce of his Stage 3 Qi directly into his right fist. He aimed perfectly for the wolf's crushed and rotting windpipe.
His fist connected with devastating, explosive force. The pure martial energy exploded outward upon impact. The wolf's neck snapped backward at a grotesque, unnatural angle.
The corrupted creature collapsed heavily into the cold mud. It twitched exactly once and then lay completely still.
Ye Chen fell back onto the wet river rocks. He clutched his severely bleeding shoulder tightly. His breathing was heavy and ragged in the quiet forest.
"System," he coughed, tasting metallic copper in his mouth. "Begin extraction immediately."
[Affirmative. Extracting essence.]
He fully expected a skill book to appear. He expected a physical item like a beast core to drop from the body.
Instead, a stream of pure and untainted Qi flowed outward from the corrupted corpse. It rushed directly into his lower abdomen, entering his dantian smoothly.
It was a massive influx of raw energy. The Chaos Body Tempering Art devoured the energy instantly, rapidly converting it into bodily strength.
[Ding! Experience gained. Experience: 450 / 500.]
[Ding! Target defeated. Reward: 50 System Points. Current Balance: 50 SP.]
"Just fifty points short of a breakthrough to Stage 4," Ye Chen muttered. He felt the pure Qi slowly soothing his torn shoulder muscles. "I need to hunt and kill more of them."
He watched the dead wolf carcass closely. It began to dry out incredibly rapidly. Within seconds, the rotting flesh and bone desiccated completely into a pile of fine gray ash.
Something incredibly heavy clattered loudly onto the river rocks from within the ash pile.
"What is that?" Ye Chen asked the empty forest.
He pushed himself up slowly with his good arm. He walked slowly over to the pile of gray ash. He reached down into the dust and picked up the hidden object.
It was a circular silver medallion. It was partially digested and heavily scarred by stomach acid.
Ye Chen wiped the thick grime away with his thumb. He recognized the engraved sect crest immediately.
"An Azure Cloud Sect identity token," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "This is impossible."
Only elite Inner Sect disciples were permitted to carry silver tokens. This item belonged to someone incredibly powerful.
Ye Chen turned the heavy token over in his palm. There were frantic scratches carved deeply into the back of the metal.
Someone had used a dagger to carve a desperate message into the silver before they were brutally eaten.
He read the two words aloud.
"Not beasts."
Ye Chen stared blankly at the chilling message. The realization hit him. The sect elders had been lying about the true nature of this forest for many years.
"System," Ye Chen said, his voice turning ice cold. "What exactly did this final message mean?"
[Data insufficient. However, environmental analysis indicates the corruption is artificial. It was created intentionally by human hands.]
"Human hand?"