Ming Xuan Ji exploded forward like a bolt from a crossbow, her Qinggong pushed to its absolute limits. Trees blurred into streaks of green and brown as she wove through the dense forest, her body leaving faint afterimages in her wake, ghostly echoes of her form that dissipated like mist in the morning sun.
The wind roared in her ears, tugging at her black hanfu and whipping her ponytail wildly behind her like a banner of war. Miles vanished in mere minutes, her enhanced physique propelling her at speeds that would have shattered records in her old world.
Every leap felt effortless, her meridians thrumming with Qi like a second heartbeat, but beneath the exhilaration lurked a reckless edge.
Her mind, frayed from weeks of isolation and the endless, mind-numbing grind, craved this. A raw, unbridled clash to drown out the doubts gnawing at her sanity like hungry rats.
‘Finally,’ she thought, a manic grin stretching across her face, the expression feeling foreign after so many days of blank, mechanical hunting.
‘Something that might actually push me. Something that might actually make me feel alive again instead of just… existing between kills.’
The monster’s Qi signature pulsed ahead like a bonfire in the night, drawing her inexorably closer with every bound.
It was stronger than anything she’d faced in the past month, a beacon of raw power that promised real growth instead of the easy, almost boring slaughter she’d grown used to.
No more trivial kills that barely made her Dantian flicker. This was the challenge her gamer instincts hungered for, the kind of fight that used to make her blood sing during streams. But in the back of her mind, a whisper of caution flickered, ignored for now in the heat of her frustration and the desperate need for something, anything, to break the monotony.
As she closed in, she channeled her Qi, preparing her strongest available attack. Flames tempted her, the Yang energy in her Dantian begging to be unleashed in a glorious explosion of destruction.
But the risk of igniting the dry underbrush and turning the entire forest into an inferno stayed her hand. She couldn’t afford to burn down her hunting ground, not when she still didn’t know how far civilization was or if there were people who might need this forest.
Instead, she opted for ice, drawing on the Yin essence within her Dantian with practiced ease, letting the cold flow through her meridians like liquid winter.
[Frost-Demon Palm] coalesced in her right hand, a chilling aura radiating from her palm like winter’s breath given form. Frost crystals formed on her fingertips, delicate and deadly, the air around her hand shimmering with cold.
It was a close-range technique, demanding direct contact, but its potency was unmatched, capable of freezing flesh and Qi alike, siphoning vitality to fuel her own growth.
She could already feel the technique responding to her will, stronger than it had been weeks ago. The month of constant fighting and absorption had paid off.
The beast came into view through a break in the canopy: a colossal wyvern, easily the size of a two-story house, its dark crimson scales gleaming like polished rubies under dappled sunlight.
Bat-like wings folded against its sinewy body, the membranes thick and leathery, and powerful hind legs ended in talons that gouged deep furrows in the earth with every shift of its weight.
Its long, serpentine neck arched as it tore into the carcass of an elephantine monster, tusks shattered and hide rent open, blood pooling in the trampled grass like a macabre painting.
The air reeked of iron and musk, the forest floor a churned mess of uprooted ferns and splintered branches. This thing was a predator at the top of the food chain, and it had been feasting well.
‘A wyvern?’ Ming Xuan Ji’s eyes widened in recognition, drawing from UBAO’s bestiary with a rush of old familiarity. But this wasn’t a game spawn; it was real, its Qi a turbulent storm of fire and earth aspects, radiating heat that warped the air around it like a mirage.
She could feel the warmth even from this distance, the way it made the leaves near it curl and brown. This was no ordinary monster. This was something that had lived long enough and killed enough to become a real threat.
It hadn’t noticed her yet, too engrossed in its meal, or perhaps her speed had outpaced its senses. She didn’t give it time to react. Launching from a low branch, she rocketed downward, her palm thrusting forward like a spear aimed at the heart of a dragon.
The [Frost-Demon Palm] connected with its left wing in a burst of arctic fury that made the air itself crackle. Ice exploded outward, crystalline veins racing across the leathery membrane faster than thought, freezing it solid in an instant.
The frost spread greedily, encasing a third of the wyvern’s body in a glittering sheath, shoulder, flank, and part of its neck locked in unyielding cold that stole the heat from the air.
The wyvern reared back with a deafening roar that shook leaves from the trees and sent birds exploding into the sky in panicked flocks.
Pain and rage vibrated through the air like thunder, the sound so loud it made her ears ring even through the rush of adrenaline.
Its massive head snapped toward her, golden eyes blazing with feral intelligence that made her pause for a split second. This wasn’t some dumb beast. This thing was thinking.
But Ming Xuan Ji was already moving, her Qinggong carrying her in a fluid arc away from its counterattack.
The beast’s spiked tail whipped through the space she’d occupied a heartbeat earlier, splintering a nearby trunk into kindling with a crack that echoed across the clearing like a gunshot.
The force of the blow sent splinters flying past her face, one grazing her cheek and drawing a thin line of blood that she barely felt.
‘Got you grounded,’ she thought triumphantly, circling the wyvern at a blur, her feet barely touching the ground as she used the trees as springboards.
With its wing frozen and useless, flight was off the table. No more aerial dives or escapes. She could harass it at her leisure, wearing it down without overcommitting, the way she used to kite bosses in UBAO when she was underleveled. The strategy felt familiar, comforting even. This was something she understood.
Her heart pounded with adrenaline, the thrill of a true fight banishing the mental fog of isolation for the first time in weeks. This was what she’d missed: strategy, risk, the dance of combat where one slip could end everything and there was no safety net. The month of easy kills had made her complacent. This… this was real again.
The wyvern pivoted, its remaining wing flaring in a futile attempt to intimidate, the membrane catching the light like a banner of war. It opened its maw, flames gathering in its throat like a forge’s heart, the heat making the air shimmer and distort.
A torrent of fire breath erupted, a scorching wave of crimson inferno that scorched the earth black and ignited nearby bushes with a whoosh that sounded like the world exhaling.
The flames rolled toward her in a tide of destruction, the heat so intense she could feel it on her skin even before it reached her. She dodged though not completely. The Wyvern’s breath was an area of effect (AOE) attack.
When the fire was nearing her, Ming Xuan Ji didn’t flinch; she’d tested her limits against lesser flames during the long weeks of grinding, and she knew her limits now.
The [Heavenly Demon Raiment] shimmered, its indestructible fabric absorbing the heat with ease, leaving her feeling no more than a warm summer breeze against her skin.
The fire washed over her like water off a duck’s back, the artifact doing what it was made to do. She emerged from the flames untouched, her hanfu not even singed, and the sight seemed to enrage the wyvern further.
It lunged, jaws snapping shut on empty air as she danced aside, her body moving on pure instinct honed by thousands of hours in the game and weeks of real combat.
She retaliated with a rapid series of [Echo Strike] palms to its flank, each blow sending vibrations deep into its body, disrupting its Qi flow and making it stagger.
The wyvern roared again, the sound filled with pain and frustration, and swung its massive tail in a wide arc that forced her to leap high into the air to avoid being crushed.
She landed on its back, her feet finding purchase on the frozen scales, and drove her palm into the base of its skull with everything she had. [Demonic Echo Palm] boomed inward, the vibration ripping through muscle and bone with a sound like thunder trapped inside flesh.
The wyvern bucked violently, nearly throwing her off, but she clung on with desperate strength, her fingers digging into the gaps between scales. Blood sprayed from its mouth as it thrashed, the golden threads of its essence already beginning to leak toward her Dantian like it knew it was dying.
But it wasn’t dead yet. With a final, desperate surge of power, the wyvern slammed itself against a massive tree, using its own body as a weapon to crush the pest on its back.
Ming Xuan Ji was forced to leap clear, the impact shaking the ground hard enough to make her stumble when she landed. The tree cracked and toppled with a groan that sounded like the world itself protesting.
She circled again, breathing harder now, her Qi reserves dipping for the first time in weeks. This thing was tough. Really tough. But this was the fight she’d been craving and dreading in equal measure.
The wyvern’s eyes locked onto her with terrifying intelligence, and for a moment, she could have sworn it was studying her, learning her patterns the way a player would study a boss. It opened its maw again, but this time no fire came.
Instead, it inhaled deeply, the air around it distorting as it pulled in ambient Qi from the forest itself, the trees around them wilting slightly as their life force was stolen. The wyvern was preparing something bigger. Something that could end this fight if she let it land.
Ming Xuan Ji didn’t give it the chance. She exploded forward in a burst of speed, her body a black streak against the green, and slammed both palms into its chest with every ounce of Qi she could muster. [Demonic Chain Palm] connected in a rapid series of strikes, each one sending cascading shockwaves through the wyvern’s massive frame.
The frozen section of its body shattered under the assault, ice and scales exploding outward in a glittering rain. The wyvern’s roar turned into a choked gurgle as its chest caved in, the golden threads of its essence flooding into her Dantian in a rush that made her vision white out for a second.
She landed hard, rolling to absorb the impact, and came up on one knee, chest heaving, sweat stinging her eyes. The wyvern’s body collapsed with a final, earth-shaking thud, its eyes glazing over as the last of its life drained away.
The golden essence poured into her, stronger and richer than anything she’d absorbed before, the Heavenly Demon Scripture devouring it greedily and converting it into pure power.
Her Dantian swelled, the warmth inside her becoming almost painful as it expanded. Bones creaked and realigned. Muscles tightened and refined themselves further. Meridians widened with a sensation like liquid fire racing through her veins.
She could feel herself breaking through some invisible barrier, her power jumping in a way it hadn’t since the first few days.
She had leveled up. Significantly.
But more than that, she felt something new settling into her mind, a fragment of knowledge from the Heavenly Demon Scripture that hadn’t been there before. A technique.
A deeper understanding of how to balance Yin and Yang in combat, how to turn the wyvern’s own fire aspect against it in future fights. The Scripture was teaching her, rewarding her for pushing herself.
Ming Xuan Ji stayed on her knees for a long moment, just breathing, the adrenaline slowly fading and leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion she hadn’t felt in weeks.
The fight had been close. Closer than she wanted to admit. If she’d been even a little slower, if the [Heavenly Demon Raiment] had failed for even a second, she would have died here, alone in the forest with no one to even find her body.
The thought should have terrified her. Instead, it made her laugh, a short, sharp sound that echoed in the sudden silence of the clearing.
She stood up slowly, brushing dirt and wyvern blood from her flawless hanfu. The artifact was already cleaning itself, the blood vanishing like it had never been there.
She looked at the massive corpse, the crimson scales still gleaming even in death, and felt a strange mix of pride and melancholy. This had been a real fight. A real victory. And she had won it alone.
She stored the entire wyvern in her [Void Storage Ring] with a thought, the massive body vanishing into the white space. It joined the thousands of other corpses she’d collected over the past month.
One day, when she found civilization, she would have a fortune in materials. Or she would use them herself to become even stronger.