Chapter 36: Satan Reincarnate!
It pounced toward Ye Qingxue just as she kicked off a tree trunk to escape the boar’s next charge.
She turned in mid-air, twisting her body and stabbing downward. The knife sank into the beast’s throat, but not deep enough. The beast screeched, claws raking across her side before she landed, rolled, and came up again, panting.
Both her own blood and the beast’s splattered on the ground. Ling Yu remained silent as she watched Ye Qingxue with contempt.
She wouldn’t interfere unless Ye Qingxue was truly in danger. Not because she didn’t care, but because she knew that a protected seedling never grows strong roots.
Ye Qingxue gritted her teeth and pressed a hand against her bleeding side. The wound stung, but her eyes were sharp, focused. She had trained for this ever since Ling Yu had taken her in; she had been subjected to intense, grueling physical training. Sword techniques, footwork, wilderness survival, and even meditation under freezing waterfalls of the back mountain. Ling Yu never explained why, and Ye Qingxue never asked.
But now, with blood on her hands and enemies all around her, she finally understood. This wasn’t just physical conditioning, but preparation for war.
More rustling came from the shadows, as dozens of glowing eyes appeared in the darkness. The beasts were converging, drawn by blood and movement. But Ye Qingxue didn’t flinch. She stood tall, arms raised in a defensive stance, eyes narrowed.
When Ye Qingxue was fighting hard, Ling Yu, who was staring down at her fight momentarily, got absorbed in her own thoughts.
Memories flashed through her mind as Ling Yu saw herself standing on a rooftop, barefoot, watching the city below drown in crimson fire. Creatures and real monsters, not these feral animals, were rampaging through the streets. Giant serpents made of smoke, one-eyed wolves that devoured fire hydrants and vomited acid. Screams filled the air. Awakened ones with glittering, dangerous weapons in their hands faced off against those monsters, who were being slaughtered like sheep.
Come to think of it, unlike her system, the system window that arrived with the disaster had a window called Stream, a chat window, and reward system, etc, that helped the world revolve a bit easier.
Many myth-grade weapons and things would be paid as rewards for clearing the missions handed out, where people can live stream and reward each other through system currency. Even otherworldly beings were permitted to join the streams as long as they didn’t disregard or violate the rules and regulations of the system.
There was also an option where the stream watchers can sponsor the people who are streaming, but being bound with a single entity would bind that person with many rules and regulations.
Narrating the apocalypse like it was a reality show, they fought to earn sponsors and gold coins.
"Welcome to the Stream, esteemed viewers! Your survival is our entertainment!"
Ye Qingxue gasped, her mind snapping back to the present, as she shook her head.
What the hell was that memory?
Even though she had never done anything like that, she did see others do it; it felt too vivid to be imagination.
Those memories resurfaced sometimes, in flashes, familiar memories from nowhere, like déjà vu that carried immense pain.
Down below the tree, the beasts charged at Ye Qingxue again. But this time, they seemed to be aware of the danger, attacking her in a group.
Ye Qingxue didn’t back away. With a calm, terrifying precision, she stepped forward instead. Her knife sliced through air, skin, and bone. Her movements weren’t graceful, but they were efficient and calculated. Every swing was aimed to kill or cripple.
Above her, Ling Yu nodded as a faint smile escaped her lips that went unseen.
This was good. Qingxue was awakening her inner powers instinctively.
Though she was far weaker than the strong person she was in her last time, in a systemic sense, she was still growing stronger. Originally, that wasn’t supposed to happen until the world collapsed. But her survival instincts had matured enough for her mind to adjust to the violence. Her body was also learning to flow with pain.
At this rate, she’d be ready to face the unknown future and the monsters soon.
Eventually, after what felt like hours, the last beast fell, twitching and silent. Ye Qingxue stood amid the corpses, coated in sweat and dirt and blood, breathing heavily but victorious. Ling Yu dropped down silently from the tree.
"You lasted longer this time than when you trained with Song," she said coolly.
Ye Qingxue gave a small grin. "You didn’t come down to help, so I assumed I was doing alright. Besides, don’t even start with Butler. He is a description of living Satan reincarnate!"
Butler Song’s gruelling training was too much for Ye Qingxue, who was still at a growing age. But he did make sure to take care of her after she collapsed each time the training session was over.
Ling Yu laughed out loud at Ye Qingxue’s description of Song. This image really matched him well for some reason. She glanced at the long cut on her side. "Patch yourself up. We’re going deeper."
"Deeper?" Ye Qingxue raised a brow. "That wasn’t deep enough?"
"The ones at the border are just animals poisoned by time," Ling Yu said, already moving. "Deeper in... the poison begins to twist the air itself. I want to see how long you can last in it."
Ye Qingxue blinked. "What are we even training for?"
Ling Yu didn’t answer, just turned sideways as she gave Ye Qingxue a knowing smile.
She simply looked at her with those eyes again, the eyes that made Ye Qingxue feel like she was already dead and buried, like a walking ghost who had somehow defied fate. And then she smiled, faintly. "For survival. That’s all."
***
The rotting trees of the Dark Forest loomed over them like giants in mourning, their blackened branches twisted into grotesque shapes by years of exposure to poisonous mists and acidic rain.