I'm Severely Injured, Hurry and Take Me to the River

Perhaps it was the adrenaline surge in a life-or-death crisis.

Perhaps it was because even the hardest Yokai horns have a limit, otherwise humans wouldn't stand a chance.

And so, with a crisp snap, golden Essence scattered like a cloud of gold dust in the air. The horn broke cleanly, and the ferocious Yokai instantly let out a miserable howl. Its massive, strong, ape-like crimson body suddenly seemed to lose the strength to support its weight.

However, just before that, its claws had also slashed down fiercely, almost simultaneously.

In an instant, Gu Mo felt like he'd lost half his life. He didn't know if his chest had been ripped open and his heart exposed. His mind was completely blank. Although there seemed to be no other sensation, he quickly felt coldness and powerlessness surge through his body, and his vision began to dim...

But all of this happened in an instant, a fleeting moment of life and death. He suddenly felt that everything he had just experienced had vanished into thin air. Whether it was his dimming vision, the coldness in his body, the weakness in his limbs, and so on, it all felt like an imagined hallucination. In its place was a feeling of immense vitality.

His whole body was filled with strength, as if he had boundless energy. His heart pounded powerfully, each beat sending ample power to every cell in his limbs and throughout his body...

Gu Mo was momentarily stunned, but he quickly reacted. The Uchigatana that had just chopped and broken the horn in his hand swung viciously again. The tip of the blade accurately stabbed into the left eye of the Yokai, which was weakened from the broken horn. Blood splattered. The Yokai, which had suddenly gone limp like noodles, let out a furious roar of pain!

He didn't know where it found the strength, but it instantly went mad. Its thick arms flailed wildly, and its sharp claws scratched and clawed everywhere. If a human were caught by one, they'd likely lose at least a few pounds of flesh. Now, its scratching left deep gouges and marks in the dirt and stones.

Gu Mo scrambled awkwardly, barely managing to put some distance between himself and the raging Yokai at his original position. After confirming that the creature wasn't chasing him and was instead going berserk in place, he quickly lowered his head to examine his injuries.

It was better not to look. When he did, he froze. It seemed it wasn't an illusion just now. The clothes over his chest were indeed torn, and beneath the ragged fabric was a bloody mess, faintly revealing the pale color of bone...

Are you kidding me?! He can still move with injuries like this, bouncing around? How is that possible?

Am I having a deathbed resurgence?

Wait, I think I have that one Skill equipped right now... In a flash, his thoughts raced like lightning. He remembered that one thing, the golden Quality Skill badge he had somehow gotten from signing in.

He had equipped it at the time and hadn't unequipped it.

The Skill "Life Potential" was passively triggered. The condition was that it could only be activated after losing more than 30% of his Health. It could temporarily increase his Health Bar limit by 100% and, to a certain extent, strengthen his vitality and stamina, raise his pain threshold, prolong his dying state, and enhance his life recovery rate...

Normally, it was a useless Skill, its effect practically nonexistent. At the time, he had even been a little annoyed by it. But at this moment, it had played a crucial role.

It seemed that as long as he wasn't instantly killed before the Skill could even trigger, then when Gu Mo entered a low-Health state, the Skill effect would activate...

Temporarily increasing the Health Bar limit by 100%, plus the remaining Health, meant his Health would actually exceed the normal full value. In other words, activating this Skill after being injured allowed his Health Bar to be longer than normal, which was ridiculous...

Furthermore, it could also strengthen his vitality and stamina, raise his pain threshold, prolong his dying state, and so on. This series of effects stacking together undoubtedly greatly enhanced his ability to survive.

The only drawback was that all of this was temporary. If the situation didn't improve or continued to worsen quickly, it would only delay death, not truly prevent it.

Gu Mo quickly sorted out the current situation. He also keenly felt this state, similar to a deathbed resurgence, rapidly becoming sluggish again. A burning, intense pain came from his chest, making him want to gasp for cold air—because of the injury, his Health and vitality were rapidly draining away every second, not pausing.

At this rate, he might not last more than a few minutes. Even if his Health Bar was a bit longer than normal now, it would probably be completely drained in just a few minutes.

Gu Mo quickly pulled out the Lesser Spirit Stone from before and decisively chose to use it. The small, prismatic golden-yellow crystal shattered, its Essence dissipating into the air. Then, under the pull of some invisible force, the faint, firefly-like Essence surged towards his body, converging on the shocking injury on his chest.

A cool sensation flowed through him, and the burning pain lessened slightly, and then...

That was it.

It really was a Lesser Spirit Stone. The amount of Health it could restore probably wasn't enough to deal with this level of injury. At least a Spirit Stone would likely be needed to have an effect. This Lesser Spirit Stone could only give him a slight blood transfusion, but it couldn't stop the bleeding...

He twitched the corners of his mouth, but he wasn't too disappointed. Firstly, he had expected this. The Lesser Spirit Stone was the worst of all Spirit Stones. Even if it served as a red/blue potion for him, he didn't expect its effect to be astonishingly exaggerated.

Secondly, he had another method, which should be his only option for self-rescue at the moment—

Without any further hesitation, because every second he delayed brought him closer to the second way of leaving the Dungeon, he channeled all his strength. Like a cheetah in a full sprint, he charged towards the raging Yokai.

The Yokai, pierced in one eye, was driven mad by the pain. After raging wildly in place for a bit, it had now stopped. Its already hideous, peeled-frog-like face was covered in blood and gore, and its remaining eye stared at him with hatred.

Resentment, loathing...

Most people facing such a monster would be terrified, and an injured, enraged Yokai was undoubtedly more dangerous than a normal one.

But Gu Mo couldn't consider any of that. Perhaps it was the pressure of survival against the clock, perhaps the fatal injury in his chest was constantly stimulating his nerves. In any case, he had no time to think too much, and no room to consider the consequences. His mind wasn't blank, but only a single, purest thought remained, transforming into nerve reflexes that drove his body.

In this moment, he strangely felt like an observer, his Spirit and matter somehow separated. His body seemed to be acting on its own, like a calm and savage beast, pouncing without the slightest hesitation towards the clearly more dangerous prey!

"Roar—!!"

The Yokai also roared, charging forward like a wild bull, directly colliding with him.

It had to kill this hateful bug and devour his flesh and blood!

A sharp monkey cry echoed, filled with unwillingness, resentment, and despair, then abruptly cut off at its peak.

As if foreshadowing the fate of the one who had cried out.

Pulling the bloodstained Uchigatana from the Ape Fiend's body, the black-haired girl turned and rushed out of the Ancestral Hall. Her white teeth were tightly clenched on her lip, and a hint of pain seemed to be hidden deep in her eyes, as if she was doing her utmost to suppress something. As the Perpetual Darkness surrounding her receded, she managed to suppress the turmoil of her Yokai Bloodline.

But the violent instinct was still stirring restlessly.

However, Hidechiyo couldn't worry about that. With a face full of anxiety, she stepped over the corpses of Yokai scattered everywhere and rushed out onto the mountain path outside the Ancestral Hall.

This sudden situation was something she hadn't anticipated. Was that person okay now? Could it be... that something had already happened to him?

The next moment, her running steps suddenly stopped, and her pupils contracted sharply—

Not far outside the Ancestral Hall courtyard, an area off the mountain path was a mess. Several trees the size of a bowl were snapped by immense force, while the thicker trees stood firm and hadn't fallen. But several nearby tree trunks had deep claw marks, embedded deeply in the wood.

It was like a fierce beast, like a bear or tiger, had been sharpening its claws on these trees for a long time, but the marks were all new, clearly made just recently.

The culprit behind all this was also obvious: a muscular Yokai with a crimson body, its size two sizes larger than a grown man. But now it was silent, lying on its back on the ground, its horn on its head broken, its face covered in blood and gore, one eye just a bloody, mangled hole.

And what had taken its life was the injury to its other eye. A short sword was deeply embedded, likely having poked through the back of its head.

Yokai possess formidable vitality and exceptional constitution, far exceeding that of ordinary humans, but even common Yokai still have weaknesses.

Leaving aside broadly defined weaknesses like their horns, most ordinary Yokai of this type were formerly human. Therefore, areas like the head and heart are still fatal weaknesses, and they naturally cannot survive a strike to such a spot.

That terrifying characteristic of being unkillable is not something just any random creature possesses.

Beside the fallen Yokai's corpse was that strange young man, gasping for air. Half of his body was almost entirely stained red with blood; it was unclear how much was his own and how much belonged to the Yokai on the ground.

The black-haired girl stood rooted to the spot, somewhat at a loss. She opened her mouth but no sound came out.

She knew she was still too late, because this person's injuries were far too severe—

The mangled area on his chest was the fatal wound; it was already extremely lucky that it hadn't claimed his life on the spot...

And now he had multiple other wounds, with half his body stained with blood...

His entire left arm hung limply, twisted into a strange position...

"Ho, Axiu, you finished up over there too..." Hearing the sound, the man looked up and smiled, saying laughingly, "Luckily, I just finished up over here too. Otherwise, it would've been a bit embarrassing, taking so long to deal with just one small monster..."

It was still language she couldn't understand at all.

The girl bit her lower lip. Did this person not know how bad his situation was? Or was he truly so nonchalant in the face of life and death? She wanted to say something. After all, failing to protect a client was a first for her, and she couldn't help but feel sad and guilty.

But precisely because she couldn't say anything, it was even more difficult.

Moreover, the other party didn't blame her. Not only did he not say anything harsh, he didn't even complain or sigh... It seemed he was calmly facing his fate and calmly accepting it.

"Um, could you give me a hand..." Gu Mo spoke at this moment, extending his hand and beckoning to the girl. "Let's go down the mountain now, back to the riverbank from earlier..."

The temporary health bonus from the skill activation had mostly faded by now. He once again felt that faint sense of weakness appearing, his hands and feet started to grow cold, and his vision became dim. He immediately understood that his Health Bar was critical.

At the same time, Gu Mo also understood that he was lucky he had put two points into Constitution earlier, strengthening both his base Life Potential and physical strength. He was much more resilient than an ordinary person; otherwise, he might not have even met the conditions for survival in this dire situation—

If he hadn't increased his stats by two points, his physical strength would definitely have been much lower. He probably wouldn't have lasted under the Yokai's first round of attacks. If he had been instantly killed, then none of this would have happened.

And if his base Life Potential hadn't been somewhat increased, the length of the temporarily added false Health Bar might not have been enough to sustain him until now.

These details might very well be the key to success or failure.

But now, he had to take the final step of self-preservation, because the idiotic Idiot System required him to see his character model in a third-person perspective in real-time to trigger the interactive options on the upgrade page. He didn't have a mirror with him, and his phone had just been tested and didn't work... He could only rely on the reflection in the water.

Go back to the riverbank?

The black-haired girl didn't quite understand why.

"Yeah, back to the riverbank. I need to wash my hands. Look at me, I'm covered in blood, sticky and gross..." As if sensing Axiu's confusion, Gu Mo explained, also urging her, "Quickly, quickly, I can't stand it for another minute..."

Hidechiyo walked forward blankly, helping him up, feeling his life force growing weaker and weaker.

She still somewhat doubted if she had heard correctly. This person could collapse and die at any moment, yet at a time like this, he was asking her to take him to the river to wash his hands?

At Gu Mo's strong insistence, the black-haired girl took him to the riverbank as quickly as possible.

Through his blurring red and black vision, he gasped for breath, looking at his reflection in the water. As he reached out to touch the surface, he opened the upgrade page at the fastest speed.

Just as he expected, his Experience Bar was already almost full before. After personally killing a Yokai higher level than a Lesser Hungry Ghost, his experience was just enough to raise his Life Level to LV4... This was his method.

Without any hesitation, he decisively pressed the plus sign next to the Constitution attribute and confirmed.

Although there was no shining beam of light, no pleasant music, and no dazzling upgrade effects, Gu Mo did indeed Level Up instantly! In the surge of heat that coursed through his body, he slightly closed his eyes, as if feeling each of his shriveled cells rapidly filling up.

"..."

The black-haired girl beside him had a stunned expression. Her cherry mouth beneath her mask was slightly agape, and her pupils were filled with shock.

She sensed that this person's life force, which had been as weak as a candle in the wind, began to rise again in that instant. Not only did it quickly return to its peak, but it was even slightly stronger than before.

But he clearly hadn't done anything; he had just reached into the water, stirred it a bit, and washed his hands