The biting chill of late autumn sliced through the forest like a blade. Del lay prone beneath a thick layer of fallen leaves, his breathing nearly inaudible. He didn’t find the ambush particularly grueling; on the contrary, he was observing the scene ahead with keen interest through his chip.
On his retina, a blue scanning reticle locked onto a Level-1 magical beast fifty meters away—a Shadow-Maned Wolf.
“No high-value alchemical materials detected. Recommend harvesting its eyeballs and blood core.” The chip reported in an icy, mechanical tone.
“Understood,” Del murmured inwardly. “Perfect—this will let me test the poison I refined yesterday.”
His fingertips shifted slightly; the transparent venom on his cross-shaped sword blade gleamed coldly. Yet just as he was about to strike, an intense sense of danger made him snap his head up.
“Chip, activate deep scan—now!”
At Del’s command, the reticle on his retina instantly turned red, the alarm blaring loud enough to rattle his eardrums.
“Alert! Level-2 energy signature detected. Target: Earth-Rending Bear. Recommendation: immediate retreat.”
Del’s pupils contracted sharply. His body became a gray blur as he shot backward. Almost the instant he moved, a muffled explosion erupted where he had been. Without looking back, he darted and weaved through the trees, following the chip’s optimal evasion route, barely vanishing into the dense forest amid the Earth-Rending Bear’s frenzied roars.
---
“Haa—”
Del leaned against an ancient redwood, wiping cold sweat from his brow. His expression remained surprisingly relaxed. “The power of a Level-2 beast… at this stage, no amount of technique can bridge that gap. It’s like challenging a tank with a kitchen knife.”
Before he could steady his breathing, a murderous intent—like maggots gnawing at bone—locked onto him once more.
“Lucky little brat who dodged a Level-2 beast. Not bad—but this is where your luck runs out.”
A gaunt, masked assassin stepped out from the shadows, twin short daggers in hand. Their tips glowed with faint blue light—the mark of a battle-qi apprentice.
The assassin regarded Del with the gaze one reserves for the dead, sneering contemptuously. “Looks like old Ian’s judgment isn’t what it used to be. A rookie who’s barely grasped battle-qi, whose attributes aren’t even stabilized—yet he personally guides you and wants to send you to that ‘place of light’? My master slaved for him for years, and he wouldn’t even spare a recommendation slot!”
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Del rose expressionlessly, casually picking up his longbow. His tone was flat. “Ian always has his reasons. As for why he chose me… maybe it’s just because I’m better-looking. He probably thinks your old face doesn’t belong in the light.”
“Sharp tongue!” The assassin’s eyes blazed with rage at the jab. He lunged forward.
---
The assassin closed in like a gale. Del calmly drew his bow, loosing white-fletched arrows one after another. To the assassin, the arrows were laughable—he deflected them effortlessly with battle-qi alone.
He failed to notice that each arrow, upon impact, released a faint, colorless, odorless mist. Del’s sword had long since been coated with his carefully prepared slow-acting toxin.
As the assassin closed to within five meters, a playful curve touched Del’s lips. “A little gift for you.”
He flung a specially prepared vial. Bang! A blindingly intense white flash erupted.
“Ah!! My eyes!”
“Chip, activate combat assist—take over visual compensation!” Del commanded inwardly.
He surged forward, thrusting his cross-shaped sword at the assassin’s throat. Yet the assassin, acting on instinct, parried the blow.
“You little bastard!” the assassin roared. A surge of energy erupted within him; his body turned blurry and translucent, as if merging with the shadows. Del’s thrust passed straight through the phantom image.
The next instant, the assassin’s daggers slashed across Del’s chest. The cold energy pierced physical defenses, corroding his internals directly.
“Useless!” the assassin laughed ferociously. “A Level-2 Shadow Assassin apprentice’s shadow state—physical attacks can’t touch me!”
---
Del staggered back several steps, coughing up blood. His body was covered in wounds deep enough to expose bone, yet he continued calculating—he was waiting for the airborne powder to take full effect.
“Chip, still not done parsing that module? You said it’s the combat logic most compatible with my subconscious?”
“Database reconstruction complete based on host’s deep memory logic. Discovered martial arts package from the old era named ‘Black Sand Sect.’ Host’s current physique meets baseline requirements for ‘Black Wind Sword.’ Load?”
Del stared at the oddly incongruous terms and couldn’t help inwardly complaining: Martial arts from some sect he’d seen on old wuxia novel sites—actually simulated by the chip from local data?
“Load!”
Del had no time to dwell on the Eastern martial arts content from his previous world—he focused entirely.
In an instant, Del felt the chaotic battle-qi within him suddenly circulate along an insanely dense and frenzied path. That power erupted like a nuclear blast from his lower abdomen—the place his previous life’s memories called the “dantian.”
“This is… qi?”
Del felt his blood boiling. The force far exceeded his body’s current limits; his gums bled from the pressure, and even his canines cracked from the sheer clenching force.
“Die!” The assassin emerged from the shadows.
Yet in that moment, Del moved.
“Black Wind Sword, First Form—Black Sand Fills the Sky!”
Del roared lowly. His cross-shaped sword swept out, no longer trailing light but thick, ink-black currents of qi. The force was so heavy it seemed to crush space itself, instantly shattering the assassin’s shadow state.
Pfft!
The overwhelming power dislocated Del’s right arm with a sharp crack. Yet the strike had already cleaved through his opponent like dead wood.
Over half the assassin’s body—arm and shoulder included—was severed and sent flying.
The remaining half collapsed onto the dark soil, oozing foul black blood.
Del clutched his dislocated arm, gasping heavily, his body soaked in blood. He walked to the halved corpse and looked down at it.
The assassin’s eyes were wide, filled with despair and absurdity in his final moments:
“Black Wind… Black Sand Sect… you… you’re not an apprentice… who… are you…”
Del surveyed the carnage, feeling the violent yet unfamiliar power in his dantian, and gave a self-mocking smile.
“I never said I was.”
