Braving the night, Li Ziyu arrived at the foot of the city wall.
At that moment, the bright moon hung high overhead, and its light stretched the towering city wall into a long shadow.
At the end of the shadow stood Li Ziyu, carrying a long saber on his back.
"Who goes there?"
"Stop!"
As luck would have it, the three soldiers stopping him this time were the same ones as before.
They shouted at him from far away.
But after seeing clearly that it was Li Ziyu,
the squad leader waved his hand behind him, signaling that the alert was lifted.
He was one of their own.
Then he walked toward Li Ziyu and stopped in front of him, looking at him in astonishment.
"Brother, is that you?"
"What are you doing here so late?"
Only two hours had passed since Li Ziyu left.
The squad leader still vividly remembered Li Ziyu carrying a Shadow Cat on his back.
He gave Li Ziyu a thorough once-over.
When he saw the long saber strapped to Li Ziyu, the squad leader looked suspicious.
"Brother, don't tell me you're planning to leave the city again?"
"Uh... yes. I was thinking, since Shadow Cats are nocturnal ferocious beasts, I might as well take advantage of the night and kill a few more."
"You said last time that I needed a Level 1 Martial Artist certificate to leave the city. I haven't gone through the certification yet, so you see..."
Li Ziyu scratched his head awkwardly and spoke.
The squad leader froze when he heard Li Ziyu's words, his eyes widening.
"Brother, you can already hunt Shadow Cats, yet don't tell me you still don't have a Level 1 Martial Artist medal?"
Li Ziyu nodded.
But the squad leader did not say anything more about that.
The rule requiring a Level 1 Martial Artist medal before leaving the city existed to stop people without sufficient strength from leaving the city and throwing their lives away.
But Li Ziyu could already hunt Shadow Cats.
That restriction simply did not apply to him.
Still, the squad leader was extremely surprised that Li Ziyu wanted to leave the city in the middle of the night, less than two hours after hunting a Shadow Cat.
He tried to dissuade him.
"Brother, listen to your big brother's advice."
"Although we martial artists have stronger blood and qi than ordinary people and abundant energy,"
"you just fought a Shadow Cat, and now you want to leave the city again. It's incredibly dangerous!"
"Even experienced veterans with formidable strength need to return and rest for two days after going out once."
"Otherwise, returning empty-handed would be the least of your worries. You could easily run into trouble!!"
The squad leader earnestly tried to dissuade Li Ziyu.
But just as last time, when he saw that Li Ziyu was determined to leave the city, he could only wave his hand and signal the guards on the wall to let him pass.
"Captain, that brother is way too reckless, isn't he? He just hunted a ferocious beast less than two hours ago, and now he's gone out again—and at night, no less."
"He's bound to get into trouble sooner or later!"
Hearing this, the squad leader watched Li Ziyu's figure disappear into the night and shook his head.
"I thought he was a genius with limitless prospects. Who would've thought he was just a reckless brute?"
"At this rate, forget hunting Shadow Cats. It'll be good enough if he makes it back. He's bound to run into trouble sooner or later."
A ruined city stretched out before him.
The wreckage of abandoned cars was scattered everywhere, along with collapsed urban buildings.
Patches of moss, which had no idea how many years they had been growing, blanketed the ruins of the buildings.
Li Ziyu looked around by the light of the moon.
Faintly, he could make out four blurry characters on a fallen signboard: Yongan Supermarket.
Several human skeletons were scattered beneath the signboard.
Li Ziyu stared at the bones, his expression shifting slightly.
"This must have once been a prosperous town. After the ferocious beasts descended and it endured the flames of war, it became what it is now."
"And according to the news reports, towns across Blue Star are turning into ruins under the invasion of ferocious beasts every moment."
"If I can't gain powerful strength, I'll probably end up like these remains one day, dying without a sound."
"But now that I have the system by my side, I absolutely won't allow that to happen!"
As he gazed at the desolate scene before him,
Li Ziyu felt that his mind had suddenly become clearer than ever.
In the past, he had wanted to become a martial artist mostly to improve his life.
After becoming a Level 1 Martial Artist, he had felt that hunting ferocious beasts every day to earn some money would be pretty good.
Deep down, he had harbored the desire to lie flat.
But after seeing this scene, he felt a desire to grow stronger!
"In this chaotic world, lying flat is simply impossible!"
"Even if I lie flat, I'll do it only after wiping out every ferocious beast!"
Li Ziyu secretly clenched his fists, his gaze turning resolute.
At the same time, he failed to notice that
the rust-covered long saber he had always carried on his back trembled almost imperceptibly the instant his mindset changed.
The change was fleeting, and it returned to stillness in the blink of an eye.
"Here comes a Shadow Cat!"
Li Ziyu's ears twitched, and every muscle in his body tensed instinctively.
He drew the long saber from his back and fixed his gaze on the ruins of a building several dozen meters ahead.
Behind the collapsed six-story building in the distance, a pair of eyes glowing red suddenly lit up.
Then a Shadow Cat emerged slowly from the ruins, its entire body pitch-black and its lithe form as large as a Manchurian tiger.
It bared its teeth and let out a threatening growl at Li Ziyu.
It was even larger than the one he had encountered last time.
And this Shadow Cat was healthy and uninjured!
Li Ziyu drew a deep breath, slowly reaching behind him to grip the saber hilt.
Without wasting words, Li Ziyu struck first.
With one explosive step,
he stomped down on the wreckage of a car, crushing it inward.
Then he charged straight at the Shadow Cat.
His figure dragged a shadow across the moonlight.
Before coming, he had already memorized and mastered all the force-generation techniques of the Basic Movement Technique.
His speed and agility were now far greater than before.
When an ordinary person faced a beast as large as a Manchurian tiger, forget taking the initiative to attack—even finding the courage to run away might be impossible.
And the Shadow Cat's size and aura were countless times more intimidating than a Manchurian tiger's!
Yet Li Ziyu felt no fear at all.
Instead, excitement surged through his heart.
This is all blood and qi!
The Shadow Cat was enraged when it saw a mere human daring to attack it first.
Roaring, it charged at Li Ziyu as well.
Its speed was extremely fast.
But Li Ziyu seemed to have foreseen its attack.
He shifted his body to the side, and the saber in his hand flashed!
He slashed viciously into the Shadow Cat's waist.
After the system upgraded his Combat Skill, Li Ziyu handled both the techniques and the saber's trajectory as if he had practiced them countless times in actual combat.
He was like a battle-hardened veteran, without the slightest trace of awkwardness.
This was the system's strength.
It was also why he dared to come hunt a Shadow Cat this time!
Ding! Killed Level 1 ferocious beast Shadow Cat. Blood and qi +0.001.
A moment later,
amid the system's pleasant notification, Li Ziyu slowly pulled the long saber from the Shadow Cat's body.
"You wouldn't believe it. This saber looked covered in rust, but I didn't expect it to be so sharp."
"And why do I feel like this saber has become even sharper than before?"
Li Ziyu held the long saber horizontally before his eyes.
He examined it carefully.
After being stained with the Shadow Cat's blood, the blade seemed to have become much brighter than before.
He had no idea whether it was just his imagination.
Ding! Killed Level 1 ferocious beast Shadow Cat. Blood and qi +0.01. Ding! Killed Level 1 ferocious beast Shadow Cat. Blood and qi +0.01. Ding! Killed Level 1 ferocious beast Shadow Cat. Blood and qi +0.01.
Although Shadow Cats were ferocious beasts, they had habits much like ordinary felines and preferred to come out at night.
In just a few short hours, Li Ziyu had already encountered seven or eight of them.
He had cut them all down one by one.
Name: Li Ziyu. Realm: Level 1 Beginner Martial Artist (+). Combat Skills: Intermediate Saber Technique (+), Basic Movement Technique (+). System: Martial God System. Function: Can absorb all things to increase blood and qi. The remaining functions await the host's own discovery.
"Great! The realm can be upgraded?"
Li Ziyu opened the system panel. On the virtual panel, a plus sign had appeared after the column representing his realm.
It was a sign that it could be increased.
Not only that, plus signs had also appeared after Intermediate Saber Technique and Basic Movement Technique.
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