Third Chapter: First Battle!

"You saw all of it?" The beauty gritted her teeth, killing intent simmering in her eyes.

"If it was exposed, of course I saw it." Shi Yan nodded. The facts were right there; denying them wouldn't change a thing. He might as well admit it openly.

"Did you like what you saw?"

"Your skin was fair and supple, and your breasts were full and perky. They really were a sight to behold." Shi Yan spoke with complete sincerity, his gaze open and frank, without a hint of guilt.

"Want another look?" Mo Yan Yu's delicate body trembled. She was so furious her lungs felt ready to burst. She'd seen shameless people before, but never anyone so brazen about it.

"If you're willing to take off your pants, and don't mind me looking, I'd be delighted to examine you closely again." Shi Yan chuckled with easy nonchalance.

Shi Yan was clearly no fake gentleman, all virtue on the outside and vice within. Before coming to this world, he'd always found a beautiful woman to help him unwind after every bout of extreme sports. Extreme sports were his greatest passion, and women were an indispensable part of his life.

Mo Yan Yu nearly exploded.

What kind of person was this? The bastard was gaunt as a skeleton, looking like a vengeful ghost, and no one knew where he'd come from. Every word he said was shameless beyond belief, yet he wore such an earnest expression. If shamelessness was a realm of its own, he must have cultivated it to the very peak.

Mo Yan Yu took several deep breaths in a row. Her proud, ample breasts rose and fell as she fought down the urge to rush over and tear Shi Yan limb from limb. At the height of her fury, she laughed instead. "Good! Very good! Excellent!"

Hearing her say that, Shi Yan felt pleased. He smiled suggestively. "So you really don't mind. In that case, go ahead and take them off. I'll be looking forward to it. I didn't get a good enough look just now. This time, I'll pay closer attention."

Mo Yan Yu froze. At first, she hadn't understood what he meant, but then the realization hit her. She'd planned to find out who he was before making a move, but now she couldn't hold herself back any longer. She swore at him, "Good? I'll give you good!"

As soon as the words left her mouth, Mo Yan Yu crossed her arms. Her slender hands glowed with blue light, then swept apart. A crescent of blue light, twisted like a bolt of lightning, shot toward Shi Yan at incredible speed.

"Azure Arc Half-Moon Slash!"

As the crescent-shaped blue light surged forward, it pulverized every bush and banana leaf between them. Its momentum was unstoppable as it flashed toward Shi Yan and slashed into his chest.

"Bang!"

Shi Yan was flung backward. His gaunt body sailed through the air and crashed into a patch of banana leaves.

His chest burned as though a knife had sliced through it. The long wound was deep enough to expose bone, and blood poured from it. That single strike had nearly cost him his life.

After the Azure Arc Half-Moon Slash struck, every obstacle between them had been swept away, revealing a flat path that reeked of scorched vegetation.

Mo Yan Yu approached with a cold expression.

Shi Yan's face gradually turned grim. The pain in his chest told him she meant business. That blow had jolted him fully awake.

In his world, if something like this had happened, the woman would at most have called him a pervert. Even the most aggressive would have handled it through the law. No one would have tried to kill him over it.

He had only just arrived here and still wasn't used to this cruel world, where human lives were as cheap as grass.

Especially in the Gloomy Forest. It lay between several nations and was subject to none of them. With demonic beasts roaming its depths and precious medicinal herbs hidden everywhere, powerful Martial Artists treated it as a training ground, while mercenaries and merchant caravans saw it as a natural treasure trove.

In the Gloomy Forest, the strong were bound by no rules. Demonic beasts and rare medicinal herbs made it a place where people were often killed and robbed. Sometimes even companions who had traveled with you would stab you in the back at a crucial moment. It was a place gone mad!

Here, powerful Martial Artists could do whatever they pleased! The weak didn't even have the right to complain!

That was exactly why he'd let down his guard. He had never imagined she would try to kill him over such a trivial matter.

Shi Yan came sharply to his senses!

At some point, the faint thread of essence energy within him had gathered around the wound on his chest, quietly nourishing it. Wherever the essence energy passed, the burning pain in his wound eased considerably.

"Rustle! Rustle!" Footsteps sounded softly on the damp ground.

Shi Yan sprang to his feet and watched Mo Yan Yu stride toward him. "Are you trying to kill me?"

"You're still alive?" Mo Yan Yu's brows drew together slightly. She stopped twenty-five meters away and studied Shi Yan with some surprise. "There's essence energy flowing inside you. So you're a low-level Martial Artist after all. Looks like I went too easy on you just now..."

Shi Yan's expression darkened. Without wasting another word, he focused and prepared to face her. He knew Mo Yan Yu would attack again.

His concentration had never been sharper. With life and death hanging in the balance, he steadied himself and soon returned to the calm composure he'd felt when pushing his limits.

He seemed to have stopped feeling the pain in his chest. All he could sense was the faint thread of essence energy racing through his meridians, moving faster and faster. The next moment, a violent, frenzied thought welled up inside him. His mind roared and jolted, and suddenly the whole world seemed to fall silent.

"Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!"

He could hear his own heartbeat with perfect clarity. As it grew faster, it was as though every cell in his body had strangely come alive! His pores and cells became keenly attuned to everything around him. He could even feel the faintest tremor in each hair as the breeze brushed against it...

Strands of strange power spilled from the seven hundred and twenty acupoints in his body, flooding into his bones and meridians. Countless currents of electricity seemed to race through him...

After a sharp pain in his eyes, he suddenly felt the whole world grow brighter, its colors more vivid. He could clearly see the fine lines on a banana leaf fifty meters away. When he looked at the beautiful but vicious woman across from him, he could sense strands of essence energy flowing through the meridians in her jade-white arms, following a specific pattern...

Nothing in the surroundings had changed, yet in his eyes the entire world was different.

Before he could properly savor this strange sensation, he noticed the strands of essence energy in the woman's arms suddenly moving twice as fast!

Every hair on Shi Yan's body stood on end!

Without thinking, Shi Yan instinctively planted his left foot against the ground. A surge of force burst from the sole of his foot, and his body shot three meters to the right.

Another crescent of blue light swept past him by a hair's breadth!

With unstoppable force, the blue light swept away everything from two meters to his left to fifty meters behind him. This attack was even fiercer than the last, its power more concentrated—a deadly strike!

Cold sweat soaked Shi Yan's back, yet excitement surged through him all the same.

He suddenly realized that a battle where life and death were decided in less than a second was beyond thrilling! He had turned this struggle between life and death into another kind of extreme sport!

In his old world, he'd been able to challenge all kinds of extreme sports, but the law, morality, and reason had trapped him in a massive cage. He couldn't do whatever he wanted without restraint. He couldn't let himself go completely or trample the boundaries of law and morality.

But here, in this world where the strong ruled! There really was nothing he couldn't do!

He suddenly felt that this place suited him perfectly! It might just become his paradise!

"Huh!" Mo Yan Yu couldn't help giving a startled cry. She hadn't expected Shi Yan to dodge. She'd been confident he would be blown to pieces by that strike, so she hadn't prepared a follow-up attack.

Mo Yan Yu's startled cry snapped Shi Yan out of his near-manic excitement, dragging him from his beautiful dream back to reality.

Without the slightest hesitation, Shi Yan suddenly leaped like an ape and grabbed a supple vine dangling from an ancient tree. He swung forward, let go, and soared high through the air. In a flash, he seized another vine and swung forward again, chaining together one fluid leap after another as he rapidly closed in on Mo Yan Yu.

When rock climbing barehanded, one often had to use the vines growing on the mountains. For a fanatic of extreme sports like Shi Yan, swinging forward with vines was child's play.

Shi Yan was like a wild monkey, swinging unpredictably from vine to vine. He moved with astonishing agility, gliding through the air without following any fixed path, yet drawing ever closer to Mo Yan Yu.

Mo Yan Yu gave a cold snort. Crescent after crescent of Azure Arc Half-Moon Slash flew through the air, cutting the vines in Shi Yan's path until they fell from above like snakes. Yet Shi Yan managed to dodge each one by a hair's breadth, switching to another vine well in advance and never giving her a clear shot.

As he moved, Shi Yan could clearly sense the power building in Mo Yan Yu's arm. That let him dodge ahead of time, slipping away just as her attacks reached him.

While in motion, Shi Yan had already begun to realize that the blood in the blood pool had changed him. His once-frail body not only kept up with his high-intensity, high-speed movements; it also sharpened his senses and gave him flashes of insight. Even his strength and flexibility seemed to surpass those of the body he'd spent more than ten years training!

"Rip!"

A crescent slash shrieked through the air and severed dozens of vines behind him at once. After the essence energy Mo Yan Yu had gathered erupted, it abruptly stalled.

Now!

Shi Yan dropped from above, swooping toward Mo Yan Yu like a fierce eagle. Before she could gather fresh essence energy, he slammed into her with deadly accuracy.

"Bang!" Mo Yan Yu fell flat on her back.

Shi Yan landed on top of her, facing her, his arms and legs clamped around her soft body like an octopus. He pinned Mo Yan Yu's curvaceous figure beneath him. Her full, firm breasts, as round as little hills, were flattened under the pressure, pressed against his still-bleeding chest.

Shi Yan's mouth filled with fragrance, and his whole body felt indescribably comfortable. He couldn't help admiring that this woman was the real thing. Unlike the women in his old world, who seemed to have full breasts but usually relied on thick padded bras; once they took them off, they were flatter than a wall.

"Let go of me." Mo Yan Yu looked at him with disgust, but didn't struggle violently. Her voice was hard as she said, "If you want to die quickly, release me this instant!"

"Bitch!" Shi Yan sneered. "You nearly killed me. You think I'm going to let you off that easily?"

Mo Yan Yu's beautiful face changed. Before she could react, she realized that the bastard on top of her had planted a hard kiss on her pure, untouched face. His hands were just as shameless: one had already crept to her shapely bottom, and he was beginning to knead it roughly...

Mo Yan Yu flew into a rage. The terrifying power hidden in the Martial Soul within her body suddenly erupted.

Shi Yan, who had been shamelessly enjoying himself, felt terrifying currents of electricity surge from the beauty's whole body. His body went numb in an instant. His arms and legs turned limp, and he could no longer summon any strength.

Mo Yan Yu shoved Shi Yan off her. Her eyes were icy as she stared at him lying on his back. After a long moment, she gritted her teeth and said, "Don't expect to die so easily!"

Mo Yan Yu picked up Shi Yan, limp as a puddle of mud, and hurried through the bushes with a cold expression, heading toward the distant commotion of voices.