Shi Yan held his dagger and first carved crude butterfly patterns into two large trees. Then he quickly climbed one of them, cut off several arm-thick branches with his dagger, split them into five pieces, sharpened them, and carelessly smeared Seven Snake Saliva on their tips.
The whole process took him two minutes.
Two minutes later, Tu Mu and Jin Mo, the two members of the Wolf Fang Mercenary Group, arrived right on schedule.
Tu Mu and Jin Mo didn't take him or the two women seriously at all. As they moved through the forest, they chatted with leering smiles, discussing how they would ravish Di Ya Lan in a moment.
"Whoosh! Whoosh!"
The sharpened branches sliced through layers of leaves and shot toward Tu Mu and Jin Mo like stubborn rays of sunlight.
Tu Mu didn't give them a second thought. He casually swung the battle-axe in his hand, knocking the two branches aside, then laughed. "These people are so pathetic. They're actually greeting us with branches. They really don't have any respect for us."
"Poor fools." Jin Mo shook his head and sneered as well.
"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!"
Three more branches shot toward them, stubbornly piercing through the air.
Growing impatient, Tu Mu swept his arm-length battle-axe in a semicircle. As silver light flashed, the three branches fell to the ground once more.
Shi Yan slowly emerged from the leaves and looked at the two men coldly. "Are you coming at me one at a time, or together?"
Tu Mu narrowed his eyes and looked up at Shi Yan. Shaking his head, he replied without interest, "He's just a green kid, probably only just entered the Innate Realm, yet he sure talks big. Too bad he's weak. I'm not interested."
With that, Tu Mu didn't spare Shi Yan another glance. He turned and left, calling back over his shoulder, "Jin Mo, he's yours. Take care of him quickly so we can catch up. If you're late, I'll have my way with that woman a second time! Hahaha!"
Jin Mo gave a cold snort and slammed his enormous spiked club into the ground. It sank deep into the soil. "Come down, kid. I won't use my weapon, and you don't need to make me climb up after you. I'm in a hurry, so let's make this quick."
"Yeah, I'm in a hurry too." Shi Yan's eyes were calm, indifferent to life or death. He leaped down from the ancient tree, and his dagger shot from his hand, burying itself in the soil beside the spiked club.
"Thump!" Shi Yan landed ten meters in front of Jin Mo. He held up his empty hands and gave them a shake. "I won't use a weapon either."
"Heh, you've got some guts, kid." Jin Mo grinned, the bumps on his face bunching together. His eyes flashed with menace as he charged at Shi Yan.
Jin Mo's hands suddenly swelled, veins writhing across his fists. As soon as he clenched them and swung, the air rang with a whooshing sound. Fist-shaped afterimages appeared in midair, growing stronger as Jin Mo advanced.
After five steps, dozens of fist-shaped afterimages had appeared in the air before Jin Mo's swinging arms.
"Mortal Grade Martial Skill, Chaotic Star Fist!"
Shi Yan's eyes narrowed slightly. He condensed his essence energy and cast every distracting thought aside. All he saw were the countless fist shadows; all he held in his heart was one thought: kill Jin Mo!
"Boom!"
His mind shook violently. As if receiving an initiation from above, he was drawn into a wondrous state.
His eyes, ears, and sense of touch suddenly became several times more sensitive. Everything around him became crystal clear. As he watched Jin Mo, he could clearly sense the speed and rhythm with which essence energy flowed through his arms.
In an instant, the countless fist shadows vanished without a trace. Every illusion was swept away. In his eyes, only Jin Mo's two swinging fists remained, even their paths of movement clear as day.
Shi Yan took a deep breath and suddenly let out a shout. His arms rapidly withered and shrank, and wisps of hazy white mist coiled around them.
At the same time, starting from his neck, his skin began to petrify, turning into gray-brown rock, hard as iron.
Puffs of dark light also billowed from the surface of his body, enveloping his slender frame.
Jin Mo's iron fists carried a surging force powerful enough to split rock as they slammed toward Shi Yan's chest.
The Dark Light Shield twisted and warped beneath Jin Mo's iron fists, then shattered with a crash into countless specks of dark light. Jin Mo's fists pierced through the shield, their force slightly diminished, and struck Shi Yan hard in the chest.
"Thump!"
"Crack!"
The heavy impact and the sound of bones breaking rang out almost simultaneously.
Jin Mo's expression turned unsightly in an instant.
The agonizing pain in his fist made him realize that the bone-cracking sound hadn't come from Shi Yan's chest, but from his own fist!
Grimacing, he shook his arm, the pain nearly unbearable, and stared in shock at Shi Yan, who stood cold as an unyielding boulder. Then something suddenly occurred to him, and he cried out, "The Shi Family's Petrifying Martial Soul! You're from the Shi Family of the Merchant Alliance?"
"Very clever." Shi Yan grinned, his smile icy and merciless.
Jin Mo sensed danger and hurriedly tried to dodge, only to realize he and Shi Yan were too close. It was already too late.
Shi Yan's hand shot out like lightning and clamped around Jin Mo's neck. The white mist coiling around his arm—mixed with fear, madness, savagery, despair, and other negative emotions—instantly seeped into Jin Mo's body.
Jin Mo felt as if he had fallen into the lowest reaches of hell. His face twisted with terror, and he trembled all over as he screamed, "No! No! Don't!"
As if he could no longer see anything, Jin Mo screamed incoherently and swung his iron fists in every direction, as though fending off some dreadful demon closing in on him.
Shi Yan had already let go. The white mist vanished from his arm, and his expression returned to normal. He silently counted the seconds.
One, two, three, four, five...
As he counted, Shi Yan calmly walked to where the dagger had sunk into the earth and pulled it free. Then, on tiptoe, he quietly approached Jin Mo.
By the time he counted to seventeen, Jin Mo seemed to have grown accustomed to the scene of terror. He gradually calmed down, and his eyes seemed to be clearing. It looked as if he were about to wake up.
Seventeen seconds was more than enough time to kill a man dozens of times over.
Shi Yan nodded faintly, satisfied. Then he suddenly darted forward like lightning, and the dagger in his hand sliced with unerring precision across Jin Mo's throat.
As blood sprayed out, Jin Mo's eyes finally cleared. He glared at Shi Yan with hatred, then fell backward, unwilling to accept his fate.
Shi Yan crouched down and first wiped the blood from his dagger with Jin Mo's clothes. Then he searched the man and found some food, several hundred Purple Crystal Coins, and two sharp fangs from a Fire Cloud Yao Python.
Without hesitation, he put the items in his pack. Shi Yan took a deep breath and felt the vital energy from Jin Mo's entire body flow into his acupoints. Only then did he stand and mutter, "At the Xiantian Second Heaven, even under the negative force of 'Rampage,' he was lost for seventeen seconds. This Martial Skill really is abnormal. Maybe the more negative force I gather, the more powerful it becomes..."
After muttering to himself, Shi Yan composed himself, held his breath, and suddenly raced off in the direction Tu Mu had gone.
"You stinking bitch, you really are a spicy one! Hahaha, but I like that!" Tu Mu laughed as he wielded his battle-axe and fought Di Ya Lan.
Mu Yu Die's eyes glittered coldly. She stood to one side, holding her zither, her pretty face shifting between light and shadow as if she were wrestling with a difficult decision.
The heavy battle-axe in Tu Mu's hand seemed as light as a feather fan.
As the axe shadows flashed, Di Ya Lan's short sword struggled to withstand them. Whenever it met the battle-axe, her delicate body trembled slightly. It was obvious that Tu Mu's essence energy was far stronger than hers.
Tu Mu's battle-axe swept around like a wheel, its shadows surging as they spun around Di Ya Lan, trapping her like a cartwheel. As the sharp axe glinted, Di Ya Lan's hair flew in every direction, and her short skirt was slashed with one cut after another, revealing glimpses of her body.
"You stinking bitch, now you know how powerful I am, don't you? Don't rush. Soon I'll show you that my best part isn't my Martial Skill! Hahaha!" Tu Mu cackled lewdly. He didn't seem to want to finish Di Ya Lan off too quickly, deliberately toying with her like this.
Di Ya Lan was furious enough to spit blood, but she couldn't even find the strength to answer. She struggled to hold him off.
"Big sis, need some help?" Shi Yan's lazy, teasing voice suddenly came from the forest.
The next moment, Shi Yan appeared with his dagger in hand. His gaze lingered for a moment on the exposed beauty of Di Ya Lan's body, and he clicked his tongue in admiration. "Smooth and full, shapely and round. Excellent, absolutely excellent."
Di Ya Lan looked delighted. She didn't have time to trade barbs now; she stepped back and shouted, "You bastard, you're still alive!"
Tu Mu's expression changed, and his face turned grave. He didn't press his advantage against Di Ya Lan. Instead, he turned to Shi Yan and asked in a low voice, "Is Jin Mo dead?"
"What do you think?" Shi Yan held his dagger and smiled at him as he walked forward one step at a time.
As he advanced, Shi Yan's arms withered again. Threads of energy mixed with all kinds of negative forces seeped from his pores and clung to his arms, refusing to disperse.
Jin Mo's vital energy hadn't been purified, but when Shi Yan used "Rampage," the despair, resentment, and other emotions Jin Mo felt before death suddenly surged out of Shi Yan's acupoints. They gathered before him, condensing into a lifelike, vicious shadow of Jin Mo.
"Jin Mo!" Tu Mu cried out in shock. His powerful frame couldn't help but tremble.
It was too bizarre!
The shadow of Jin Mo before Shi Yan looked like a fierce ghost, baring its claws. It floated weightlessly, and the hatred in its dark, resentful eyes was so deep it seemed ready to wipe out every living soul in the world.
Di Ya Lan and Mu Yu Die were both shocked. Their delicate bodies trembled, and they couldn't help screaming, "What is that thing?!"
The others weren't the only ones stunned. Shi Yan himself was taken aback, staring blankly at the shadow that had appeared before him, unsure what to do.
"Jin Mo! Jin Mo! What's wrong with you?" Under the shadow's burning hatred, Tu Mu took a step back and cried, "We're allies! Your enemy is behind you!"
Tu Mu's cry snapped Shi Yan out of his daze. His mind held only one thought: kill Tu Mu. The negative forces coiling around his arms suddenly shot out like a pale, monstrous snake, twisting eerily toward Tu Mu.
Jin Mo's shadow seemed to be driven on by those negative forces as well. It floated toward Tu Mu and clawed at him like a fierce ghost.
"Kill!" Shi Yan shouted coldly and charged forward. Di Ya Lan froze for a moment, then raised her sword and slashed at Tu Mu.
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