Chapter 11 - Strike Back  

A crowd of people had started to gather in the Dark Forest, which was filled with all kinds of trees and plants. Warriors from the Mo family had separated into groups and were searching for Shi Yan in their designated areas. They all had a depressed look on their faces.

Mo Yanyu’s face was as cold as ever. She gave her order in a sharp voice, “Go search for that bastard! Now! Once you have found any trace of him, set off the blue smoke bomb! Don’t fight him individually!”

“It has been 3 days and we still cannot find that guy, but we keep finding traces of him. Is he that poor at covering his tracks, or has he been intentionally playing with us?” Master Karu said with a sour face, apparently irritated by Shi Yan’s tricks.

For the past few days, the whole crowd had been looking for Shi Yan in the Dark Forest. They could occasionally see the footprints and broken tree branches he left behind on his way through. He must have been around this area for days, but no matter how hard they searched, they couldn’t find anything, not even the smallest clue as to the whereabouts of Shi Yan.

“Search a bigger area!” Mo Yanyu was pissed off, and shouted her new order, “Start from here and search separately! Do your best! Once you see him, release the blue smoke bomb! I will be there in an instant!”

The warriors of the Mo family all complied obediently.

“Is it okay to leave the Ground Dragon alone?” Master Karu frowned, and said worriedly, “All my medicine bottles are with the dragon. If that boy goes over there to mess with my medicine, he would cause me more trouble than I could handle.”

“Master Karu, don’t you worry. The Ground Dragon is being guarded by Johnson and seven other warriors. Johnson has already reached the Third Sky of the Elementary Realm. That asshole is no match for him.” Mo Yanyu said with a proud face.

Master Karu nodded in consent.

The warriors of the Mo family had moved further and further away, and the members had become more and more distanced from each other. With one hand on the blue smoke bomb, the warriors were not that stressed. As soon as they saw any trace of Shi Yan, all they had to do was to set off the blue smoke. Simple enough!

One of the warriors was walking in the shade, cursing Shi Yan at the same time with an angry face. He looked up at the tree branches above his head, and then checked the bushes around his ankles.

They had been searching this area for the past three days! All for a junior warrior who had barely reached the Elementary Realm! There was no trace of him at all. They didn’t even believe that he was still in the area, they all thought that Shi Yan had already left. Therefore, all the warriors were not happy when they were ordered to search this area again, complaining in secret and thinking that they were wasting their time. There was no point for them to do this!

The warrior arrived under one of the aged trees, shaded by all the thick branches and leaves. This time, when he looked up, all he could feel was a chill, cold and evil, pouring down onto him. All of a sudden, Shi Yan jumped down from the tree like a fierce wolf, crushing the warrior’s face with his knee.

“Boom!”

With a strong blow, the warrior’s face was instantly covered in fresh blood. He fell on the ground, with his eyes filled with blood and tears. For a moment, he couldn’t see anything.

All he could do was stab his dagger wildly, shouting in panic, “Here! He’s over here!”

Before he could release the blue smoke bomb in his left hand, an intense pain spread from his left wrist. He couldn’t stand it and let the blue smoke bomb be taken away from him.

“Boom! Boom! Boom!”

Shi Yan put on the cruelest face he had ever made. Before he could realize, his eyes had already turned dark red and there was a murderous look in his eyes. He moved swiftly around the warrior, hiding away from his random stabbings and continued stepping on his face, showing no mercy.

With his Profound Qi running wild through both of his legs, Shi Yan’s every hit was as powerful as an iron hammer. Under such strong attacks, it only took five strikes for the warrior to stop breathing.

Seeing this, Shi Yan stepped towards the dead warrior, grabbed the dagger from his lifeless hand and stabbed straight into the warrior’s neck with a precise and cruel cut. Shi Yan’s face remained calm and cold all this time.

All of a sudden, a strong wave of invisible energy spilled out of the warrior’s body, mixed with strings of emotions such as distress, anger and panic, all pouring out at once. The energy was quickly absorbed by Shi Yan and flowed into his Meridians. Within a few seconds, the warrior had lost all his Profound Qi and turned into a mummified body.

Shi Yan approached the dead body again. He searched through his pockets with a frown, and only found a packet of food and a few dozen Purple Crystal Coins. Shi Yan took away his possessions and quickly left the scene. He didn’t want to stop in one place for long, making his way swiftly through the dark forest swiftly like a fox, and soon disappearing into the trees.

This was the first time that he had ever taken a man’s life. However, he was not at all nervous or panicky. He had remained calm and cool-headed the whole time. When he was stepping hard onto the warrior’s face, he felt nothing but an overwhelming thrill, a great satisfaction that he couldn’t describe with words. He was free. He felt like he was a warrior by nature, and that he was born to kill.

The killing had brought him a feeling of euphoria, it was the most wonderful moment that he had never experienced. All the unpleasant feelings that had been haunting him for days were instantly cast away the moment he cut that warrior’s neck.

Deep down, Shi Yan knew this wasn’t right, and that there must be something wrong with his body. No normal person would be this calm and steady when killing his first victim, not like him. Normal people wouldn’t feel this kind of thrill or bliss either. However, he was like an obsessed drug addict when it came to murder and killing.

As the Profound Qi from the warrior’s body rushed into Shi Yan’s Meridians, there was again a strong urge of murder flaring up inside his body. Before long, a strange energy poured into his Profound Qi, making it even stronger and more concentrated than ever.

This felt so good!

For five days, Shi Yan was like a ghost in the Dark Forest. He was everywhere, always killing, and always precise and accurate. The murders all happened in sneak attacks before those poor warriors had chance to release their blue smoke bombs in their hand.

Within days, another three warriors became Shi Yan’s victims. Every time, when their bodies were discovered, they had already become mummified, with all their blood and Profound Qi sucked away.

Mo Yanyu became more and more agitated. She searched and searched around the dark forest with Master Karu, desperate to dig Shi Yan out. Both of them had started to smell a crisis on the horizon.

For the first victim, his face was terribly destroyed, with a cruel blow to his head, and there were still some traces of a struggle.

For the second and third victims, they were both secretly attacked from behind, with several brutal stabs in their hearts and abdomen, with only traces of a brief fight still there.

However, for the last warrior, he was killed instantly with a clear cut on the throat and there was no trace of a fight at all.

Judging from the four dead warriors, Shi Yan was becoming more and more skilled at killing. The Dark Forest had become a perfect arena for showing off his talent of murder. He skillfully used the landscape to cover his own tracks. Like an experienced hunter, he was secretly hiding in the forest, watching and waiting for his next prey.

The death of those four warriors had made the other warriors all very nervous. Mo Yanyu and Master Karu were also starting to take this seriously. As per their new orders, the warriors were not allowed to act individually. They were only allowed to move in groups of two. This way, if one of them was attacked, the other one could come right over it help, in order to avoid the tragedy that had happened before.

In the Dark Forest, on the top of an aged tree, wrapped and covered by layers of leaves, Shi Yan sat cross-legged in silence, looking at those little human figures in the distance through the leaves.

“Huh, not as stupid as before...” Shi Yan sniffed from the inside. He knew it wouldn’t be that easy for him to strike and kill now.

Shi Yan didn’t rush into attacks. He watched those warriors for a while, and noticed that after the death of the previous four warriors, the Mo family warriors had started to act in groups of two, hence they couldn’t cover a search area as large as before. Right now, they were not coming in his direction, but moving away from Shi Yan’s location.

After making sure that the warriors were not coming his way, at least not in a short period of time, Shi Yan closed his eyes quietly, and started to circulate the Profound Qi inside his body. The Profound Qi of those killed by Shi Yan over the past few days had all been absorbed by Shi Yan’s Meridians shortly after they died, and was purifying his Meridians and strengthening his Profound Qi in a powerful way.

Shi Yan started to circulate the Profound Qi inside his body faster and faster with his mind. He could clearly feel that his Profound Qi was much stronger than before, rushing through his Meridians like an intense lightning all over his body, from his abdomen and all the way to his right arm. Shi Yan held his breath, cleared his mind, and concentrated all his attention in pouring the Profound Qi into his right arm. Now! He released this burning energy all at once!

The Profound Qi inside his arm was flowing rapidly towards his right index finger like wild horses escaping from their reins.

“Shoot!”

Some silver colored light smoke suddenly shot out of his right index finger, making a strange sound the air. The light smoke didn’t gather in the air and only lasted for a few minutes before it faded away.

Shi Yan opened his eyes, with bright stars shining in his black eyes and a surprised smile on his face.

He had successfully managed to push his Profound Qi outside of his body!

This marked him reaching the Third Sky of the Elementary Realm. After his rigorous practice over the past few days, he had finally made it to a new level with the help of that strange power inside his Meridians.

Although the Profound Qi that was forced from his body was not in a concentrated shape, and couldn’t make itself into a sharp beam, he would be able to infuse his Profound Qi into all kinds of killing weapons, and could directly rupture the enemy’s organs with his Profound Qi shot; which meant that he had already reached a milestone in his control and operation of Profound Qi.