7 The thrill of battles

[Word Count 2818]

The scenery inside Sky Cloud Forest was a complete contrast to the outside world.

Tall ancient trees of over a hundred meters grew wildly all over the lands of the forest.

The fresh air smelled nice and made one feel closer to nature than ever.

The flora and fauna were truly full of diversity, each adapted to survive in their own unique ways.

Due to the existence of huge canopies, the shadows cast by the ancient trees made Sky Cloud Forest even more creepy.

"I would never have imagined myself to be anywhere closer to an incomparably huge forest like this in my previous life. It truly outshines both the Amazon and Congo forest in every way especially in terms of size and creepiness." Zhao Wei perched himself on a thick branch of one of the tallest ancient trees that he could find.

With the sturdiness of his body and speed, he could easily climb up to the top of these gigantic trees though they made his humanoid figure look so tiny from a distance.

All his senses were fully alert to pick up any anomalies in his vicinity.

"A person is closest to death when they lose focus and relax in such an environment." Zhao Wei reminded himself while using his telescopic vision to do an aerial surveillance.

Using his current position as the focal point, his vision covered a distance of over 1 km circumference. He didn't see any higher realm demonic beast that could pose a fatal threat to his dear life.

From his analysis, the images he had witnessed really looked like a documentary from NatGeo World.

They were vivid depictions of a be-the-hunter or be-the-hunted scenario.

"A three-headed red mamba is dozing like nobody's business 300 meters away at 3 o'clock." His vision zoomed in at his first target.

"Peak of 2nd rank, just shying away from 3rd rank. Its poison is so deadly that with just one dosage of it into the bloodstream of those of the fourth rank and below, guarantees a quick painless death by instantly arresting all of your neural functions and finally, the cardiac muscles." Zhao Wei went over the profile of his first target with a confident smile on his face.

"Other wild beasts are probably not trying to invade its space due its extremely venomous notoriety."

It won't be a challenge for him to kill it but he had to be thorough enough and one-shot it cleanly.

"Its weak point is located at the base of its three heads, the navel region where its brain rests. Such peculiar anatomical positions really makes me excited." Zhao Wei took an arrow from his back and calmly aligned it with the string of the Iron Bow.

He took in a deep breath while locking his sharp and superior gaze on the unsuspecting Three-Headed Red Mamba.

"Not sorry buddy." Pulling the taut string backwards, Zhao Wei concentrated the energy of vibration on the shiny tip of the arrow, before releasing all that tension freely. The recoil didn't even burge his arm.

The arrow was like a shooting star from the outer heavens, extremely fast that it looked like it had vanished from the fabric of reality.

And when it cleanly and unobstructedly pierced the shiny red scales of the Three-Headed Red Mamba and then smashed its little brain, the poor bastard died soundlessly without as much as struggling at the doors of death.

It was a clean execution. Perfect kill.

Using [Instantaneous Lightning Movement], arcs of lightning started cracking off his feet as he moved freely and unhindered toward his perished prey.

"The skin of the Three-Headed Red Mamba is quite a rarity as most cultivators tend to avoid it at all costs. Getting 1000 pieces of silver from it is a given especially since it's on demand." Zhao Wei smiled and then took out his cold steel dagger before starting the skinning process. He didn't forget to hum a random jovial tune since he was in great spirits.

Money can bring you happiness without you even knowing it.

All in all, it took him a few minutes to finish with the skinning. The extracted scaly skin was then carefully stored in his storage bag. The storage bag was just a traditional bag and not the type to hold a bigger inner space like spatial artifacts.

"As for the poison sac and gallbladder, those are exactly what I need for 'that'." Zhao Wei carefully wrapped the two fresh organs using some herbal leaves with preservative effects.

"Awuuu!" A howl suddenly made his eyes instantly look toward a certain direction.

He was currently on the open ground where most archers were hugely disadvantaged.

"Those fuckers are surely fast. They are basically like hounds with noses capable of sniffing even their own deaths."

Zhao Wei was pretty much relaxed as he had already investigated his surroundings prior to standing in open space.

He wanted those silver-furred mutts to come to him.

"Silver-furred Wolves, strength rivaling those of the peak of 3rd rank. They like moving in packs consisting of 6-8 wolves without having an alpha leader."

"They seem more like jackals or wild dogs."

"Grrr!" The silver-furred Wolves started slowly surrounding him. Their eyes were filled with greed and animosity as they locked their feral gazes at both the snake's corpse and him.

Loose saliva kept on dripping incessantly from their gnashing sharp fangs. They wanted to intimidate their prey. To instill fear and carelessness.

Zhao Wei calmly looked at the 7 pups besieging him.

His heart was as still as water. Zhao Wei's eye abilities made him seem like an omnipresent god at 360 degrees angle. The radius being covered by both him and the Silver-furred Wolves was all under his supreme senses.

"Grrr!" One brave silver-furred wolf couldn't hold it in anymore and sneak attacked him from behind, probably thinking that the prey wouldn't see it coming.

Just as its razor-sharp claws were about to scratch some pounds of flesh off his back, Zhao Wei reacted at the last second.

Using the force generated by his feet from the ground, he leaped up, did a turn in mid-air and delivered a powerful roundhouse kick to its head. The force of his kick was so powerful that it immediately crushed the sneaky yet stupid wolf's head into an unsightly meaty mess with its brain matter splashing all over the ground.

Silence.

Everything had happened so quickly. It completely caught the other Silver-furred Wolves unprepared.

Zhao Wei's reaction speed and destructive power were so terrifying that it instinctively made the Silver-furred Wolves to slowly back away.

It seems the prey that they had set their eyes on was a fierce one but even if it was a prey that could fight back… the hunter still never backs away from the prey.

"Grrr!"

"AWUUU!"

The remaining 6 Silver-furred Wolves seemed to have reached a tacit understanding among themselves as they all jumped at him to eliminate him once and for all.

When engaging in a deadly fight, Zhao Wei found out that he was like a different person.

It was something that he had just realized about himself.

A battle-hungry mad smile on his face and an overwhelming bloodlust hidden deep in his calm eyes… Those features made him like a demon god about to go on a murdering spree.

With brandished razor-sharp silver claws and sharp glittering fangs closing down on him with each passing second… Zhao Wei felt as if time had momentarily stopped!

His temporal senses were overclocked at that very moment.

In his perception, everything seemed to be moving at a snail's pace.

Lightning Mist started radiating off his body as both [Illusory Mist Steps] and [Instant Lightning Movement] were superimposed.

He was no longer in his previous position but a life-like illusory clone had taken his place. And when the Silver-furred Wolves started violently biting and scratching the shit out of his clone, Zhao Wei unsheathed the cold steel dagger from his waist and began a bloodbath from behind.

Kacha!

Zhao Wei forcefully dug his dagger into the neck of a Silver-furred Wolf next to him and brutally separated its head from the rest of its body.

Red warm blood sprayed haphazardly all over his face and body as a result of his unbridled brutality and without catching his breath, Zhao Wei proceeded to tear apart another Silver-furred Wolf into two bloody pieces, exposing its entrails out in the open.

These Silver-furred Wolves weighed almost 400 kg and were 1.5 meters in length but that seemed not to matter in the eyes of Zhao Wei who now had a crazed smile on his blood-smeared face.

The massacre continued and soon… There was only one man and a pile of bloodied corpses lying down on his feet.

With a dripping dagger on his hand, his eyes were closed and facing the sky. Amidst the pool of thick blood below his feet, a baleful aura emanated from his terrifying form. The world looked gray and gloomy in his presence due to the intense killing intent.

"Huff… Killing and snuffing the very life of another living being who has directed their killing intent towards me… is intoxicating!" Zhao Wei coldly smiled while looking at the piece of nauseating artistic creation that he had painted on the ground.

He felt relieved and unburdened, as if all the pent-up stress inside of him had been erased through his small session of killing.

Those ferocious beasts wanted to gobble him up and it was reasonable for him to massacre them in kind and send them off into the cycle of forgetfulness.

Instead of being hunters, they had become lambs to his dagger's slaughtering spree.

This was once again a matter of the strong reigning supreme and the weak being culled from the natural ecosystem.

But was Zhao Wei really strong? No.

How can you be considered strong when there are others stronger than you?

It was good to be aware that there will always be mountains beyond mountains and skies above skies lest one falls into conceitedness and impetuosity.

***

The days that followed next were sources of vital battle experience for Zhao Wei. He forgot all about the Zhao Clan, he forgot about all unnecessary thoughts. Truthfully, his days were just filled with peaceful and idyllic slaughter.

Everywhere he went, there would always be blood and bones left behind his trail. He was like an Asura from the deepest level of Hells, casually reaping the souls of the living left and right.

The many battles he had fought hadn't been easy nonetheless. He had encountered quite a number of extremely difficult foes and shockingly some of them were deadly beasts with strength equaling the peak of fourth rank martial artists.

His mental fortitude had been significantly strengthened after experiencing a variety of life-threatening situations inside Sky Cloud Forest.

Unsurprisingly, his actions had inadvertently been noticed by other disciples, especially by those originating from the Xin Clan.

They just couldn't believe that a single person could cause all that slaughter.

They didn't know who it was and even after trying to do some investigations, they were only left empty-handed.

Zhao Wei was like an untraceable nether ghost and they could only give up and leave their curiosities unsatiated.

But that didn't prevent some of them from coming up with various nicknames for him.

Some dubbed him the 'Bloody Calamity' while some went with 'Slaughter Demon.'

***

"Hook line and sinker."

Zhao Wei was now standing at the edge of a small stream with a wooden spear in his hand.

On the tip of the spear, there were two huge river trouts struggling to maintain their last breaths.

He then removed the fresh trouts from the wooden spear and placed them down on the huge leaves laid on the ground.

After that, Zhao Wei took a seat on a nearby rock. A fire could be seen burning silently in front of him.

He took out the cold steel dagger from his waist and was prepared to use it as a fileting knife. The cold steel dagger seemed to have endured many battles and it was slowly losing its sharpness.

"If I have the chance I will make sure to have that Assassination Dagger exclusively for my cooking sessions, hehe," Zhao Wei thought about the pretty useful weapon that was in the future going to be taken by the Heaven's Legacy Cat from the ancient ruins.

With finesse control and fluid movements, Zhao Wei began fileting the huge river trouts one by one. He then separated the bones and meat neatly. With a calm, relaxed smile on his battle-hardened face, he used the condiments he had previously bought in the city to marinate the fileted meat of the two fish and allowed the seasonings to seep deep into them.

Since he didn't have a pan, he couldn't sear them so he was only left with the option of roasting them carefully.

"Hmmm, this smells so good. I am drooling." Zhao Wei took an exaggerated whiff off the now well-roasted huge pieces of fish.

Without caring that it was sizzling hot, Zhao Wei took a huge bite out of one of the roasts.

He felt like he was like a fish swimming in the ocean without a single care in the world.

It was just basically food-gasm.

The smell emanating from the meat was so enticing but surprisingly, there weren't wild beasts or deadly beasts nearby to interrupt him.

The place where he was situated, was well-hidden from prying eyes and he had already made sure to surveil the place multiple times.

It's been one and a half months since he had arrived in this world and only 25 days or so were left for the day of the family sparring contest to arrive.

He had already stepped into the 3rd rank and was only a breath away from the peak.

After eating a variety of dozens of deadly beasts, he had naturally broken through without a hitch.

In fact, he hadn't bothered to cultivate during his time in the Sky Cloud Forest, it had just been him and blood-boiling battles.

He had killed many beasts that he lost count, not that he was bored enough to keep count of his kills.

"Even a normal chicken who is constantly being supplied with medicinal pills, spiritual food and herbs can easily ascend to the heavens and transmogrify into a spiritual beast." His situation was just like that. A lot of beneficial resources can always make up for a barely passable talent.

Talents in the Fan Universe were categorized into four ranks: Mortal rank, Spiritual rank, Earth rank, and finally, Heaven Rank.

As for the holders of ancient eye bloodlines or even those with even traces of bloodline from the Ten Thousands Races were completely on a whole different world of their own. They were basically monsters that were above even geniuses with Heaven rank talent.

And Zhao Wei's talent was probably between mortal and spiritual rank… honestly speaking it was just mortal rank. Saying that it was between this and that, was just some form of pity.

After finishing his meal, he let out a satisfied sigh.

He currently looks totally different from the Zhao Wei of the past. He now had extremely condensed muscles and exuberant blood energy flowing through his veins. His body's vision and reflexes had already transcended human limitations.

"Man, I wish I had a storage ring or even an inventory space. The things I have killed… just how much could I have made after selling them off?" Zhao Wei adorned a regretful expression on his face.

"Tsk, anyways… I have enough drops to guarantee me 30,000 pieces of silver and above." It would have been more but since he had prolonged his stay in the Sky Cloud Forest, some of the harvested parts from deadly beasts had gone bad during that time so he had been forced to dispose of them.

"It's time to go back to Sun Feather City and enjoy the fruits of my harvest." Zhao Wei couldn't help but nod his head in satisfaction while looking at the treasure-filled huge bags laying on the ground.

"As for the free medicinal herbs present in the cave of the Blood Red Python, since I can't go there at the moment, I will have to ruminate on a plan on how to deal with it at a later time."

How could he leave such treasures in the hands of others when he already has the upper hand when it comes to easily identifying their locations?

It would have seemed stupid if he didn't try to make such moves.

With all the knowledge about the future events and spots of opportunities irregardless of the appearance of variables, Zhao Wei was determined to be the only one getting all the favorable benefits.

***