32: Chapter 32 Late Night Campfire, Practical Development of [Paper Drawing]

The sunset in the wilderness came without warning.

One second, a smear of dark red setting sun still hung on the horizon; the next, the ink-black night poured into this abandoned city like a tide.

As night fell, that dark red aura of the abyss in the air became increasingly dense.

From deep within the surrounding ruins, all sorts of hair-raising roars and chewing sounds began to echo one after another.

This was the most dangerous time in the wilderness.

Those eerie nocturnal mutated beasts that lay dormant during the day began to emerge.

Even the best-equipped and most experienced mercenary squads would, at this moment, lock themselves tightly inside underground bunkers they had found beforehand, like groundhogs, not daring to even breathe loudly.

But Su Chen did not crawl into a hole.

He carried that blood-stained iron blade and climbed all the way up along the ventilation duct on the outer wall of an abandoned office building.

A height of thirty stories.

"Bang."

Su Chen kicked open the rusty iron door of the rooftop and walked into the spacious top floor.

Several mutated poisonous centipedes lurking in the shadows of the water tank moved at the sound and sprang up.

Su Chen did not even look, swinging his blade with a backhand motion.

"Plop. Plop."

Several severed insect corpses fell to the ground, and green venom corroded the concrete floor, emitting puffs of white smoke.

Clearing finished.

Su Chen walked to a sheltered corner of the rooftop, built a simple fire pit with a few broken bricks, and lit a campfire.

The firelight flared up, dispelling the surrounding chill.

From the backpack behind him, he took out a large piece of hind leg meat from a high-order mutated beast he had slain during the day, skewered it with an iron rod, and placed it directly over the fire to roast.

No seasoning, no marinating.

Ten minutes later, grease dripped into the fire, making a "sizzling" sound, and the aroma of meat filled the air.

Su Chen drew his dagger, sliced off a large piece of half-cooked beast meat, and chewed it heartily.

He ate quickly and vigorously.

"The drain of [Armament Haki] on physical stamina is even more terrifying than I expected." Su Chen swallowed a mouthful of meat and muttered to himself.

During the day, he had practically bulldozed his way to this district.

Although it was satisfying to kill one with each strike, maintaining [Armament Haki: Hardening] at high intensity continuously had left his muscle cells screaming madly for energy right now.

The meat of mutated beasts in this high-martial world had a rough, sour taste, but it contained extremely abundant Life Qi energy.

As a large amount of beast meat went down his stomach, that warm current quickly spread from his stomach to his limbs and bones.

Su Chen could clearly feel the depleted stamina in his body being rapidly replenished and filled.

"Hoo."

After finishing the last bite of meat, Su Chen exhaled a breath of turbid air, closed his eyes, and leaned against the wall to rest.

The firewood in the fire pit made a "crackling" sound.

The night wind blew across the edge of the rooftop.

Suddenly.

A cluster of flames dancing in the fire pit shifted eerily to the left without warning.

It was not the wind.

Su Chen, with his eyes closed, raised an eyebrow slightly.

He did not hear any heartbeat, nor did he catch any sound of flapping wings.

In the perception of a conventional Martial Artist, the rooftop was empty, with nothing there.

But the massive [Yin Release] Mental Energy in his mind acted like a radar, capturing an extremely subtle, abnormal fluctuation in the air.

"Something is coming." Su Chen knew it clearly in his heart.

Shadow Night Bats.

The low-level social mutated beasts that wilderness hunters found most troublesome.

They were born with perfect camouflage, allowing them to blend completely into the night.

Not only did they not make a sound when flying, but they could also interfere with a Martial Artist's Life Qi perception by emitting ultrasonic waves.

Ordinary vision and radar were equivalent to decorations in front of them.

The bloody smell of the roasted meat and the firelight had attracted this group of night killers.

"Three. No, five."

Su Chen kept his eyes closed, not even changing his sitting posture.

In the night sky above him, five almost completely transparent shadows were folding their wings, like five silent, falling blades, diving down simultaneously from different blind spots toward Su Chen's throat, heart, and back of the head.

Extremely fast, silent.

In the nick of time.

Su Chen did not choose to open his eyes to activate his [Sharingan] to track them.

"Since my naked eyes can't see them clearly, then I won't use my eyes."

He muttered in his heart.

What the [Two-Tomoe Sharingan] bestowed upon him was by no means just visual dynamic tracking, but also the [Yin Release] Mental Energy that had surged due to awakening his eyes.

Su Chen spread all his mental perception outward, using himself as the center, for a full three meters.

Forming an absolute mental Domain.

Although the Night Bats' pounces had no sound, as long as they had physical bodies, they would inevitably cause subtle changes in airflow when moving at high speed cutting through the air.

"The air pressure has changed."

Just as the sharp, blade-like wings of the first Night Bat were less than ten centimeters from Su Chen's throat.

Su Chen's body moved.

He did not mobilize any muscles to dodge with force, nor did he put up any defense.

He did the exact opposite of [Iron Body]—

Completely relaxed.

Abandoning all muscle tension, letting the weight of his body seem to return to zero at this moment.

"Whoosh!"

The weak airflow brought by the Night Bat's dive blew onto Su Chen first.

Su Chen's body was like a light piece of paper blown up by a breeze.

Following the thrust of this airflow, his upper body leaned back by half an inch in an extremely eerie, even somewhat anti-joint posture.

Just that half inch.

The Night Bat's sharp, blade-like wings slid past the tip of Su Chen's nose, severing a strand of hair on his forehead.

The attack missed.

The second and third Night Bats followed closely, crossing in a scissor attack from the left and right sides.

Su Chen still had his eyes closed.

"The airflow on the left is rapid, the airflow on the right is slow."

His whole body seemed to have lost its bones, following the vortex formed by the intersection of the two airflows, his body tilted extremely to the left, and then his waist twisted like a willow branch.

"Whoosh! Whoosh!"

Two shadows brushed past his shoulders and ribs, leaving two faint cold glints in the air.

The fourth, the fifth.

In the corner of the rooftop, an extremely eerie silent dance was unfolding.

The five Shadow Night Bats were frantically crossing and pouncing, weaving a deadly net in mid-air.

And Su Chen was that falling leaf in the net that could never be caught.

He did not actively exert force, relying entirely on the air pressure changes produced when the Night Bats attacked, letting the airflow "push" his body to dodge.

Leaning back, side-swaying, sliding, twisting.

The movements were fluid, without a hint of clumsiness.

"This is [Six Powers: Paper Arts]."

Su Chen realized in his heart.

Discharging all strength from his body, and by sensing the changes in airflow produced by the opponent's movements, he made his body automatically avoid attacks like a sheet of paper.

This required extremely keen perception, as well as absolute control over every muscle in his body.

After continuously dodging six fatal cross-pounces.

The five Night Bats seemed to have sensed the eeriness of this prey; they stopped abruptly in mid-air, preparing to gain altitude and reorganize for the next round of dives.

"Done playing?"

Su Chen slowly opened his eyes.

In his blood-red pupils, two pitch-black tomoe slowly rotated under the reflection of the firelight, emitting a coldness that made the Soul freeze.

"My turn."

Su Chen's body switched from a state of extreme relaxation to extreme tension in a thousandth of a second.

He raised his right hand and reached out like lightning.

"Armament Haki: Hardening!"

A mysterious black metallic luster instantly covered his palm.

"Screech—!"

The Night Bat leader, the largest one, which was preparing to flap its wings and fly high, let out a terrified, sharp screech.

But just as the sound left its throat, it felt its skull tightly gripped by an irresistible iron pincer.

Su Chen's movement was too fast, so fast that this Night Bat, which excelled in speed, couldn't react at all.

"Caught you."

Su Chen looked at the monster in his hand, covered in black flesh membranes and struggling desperately, without the slightest mercy.

His five fingers closed abruptly.

"Snap!"

A crisp sound.

The Night Bat leader's hard skull, under the grip of [Armament Haki], was like a ripe tomato, directly crushed to pieces.

Black blood and brains squeezed out from between Su Chen's fingers, dripping onto the concrete floor of the rooftop.

The Night Bat leader's corpse twitched twice and then went completely still.

"Screech! Screech!"

The remaining four Night Bats, seeing their leader instantly killed, were so scared they let out ear-piercing shrieks.

Their proud assassination technique had become a joke in front of this human, so how could they dare to stay any longer?

Four black shadows frantically flapped their wings and fled in all directions without looking back, merging into the thick night in the blink of an eye.

Su Chen did not pursue them.

Shadow Night Bats, this kind of low-level mutated beast, had pitifully few [origin points] inside them, not worth him wasting his stamina to chase in the night.

He shook the dirty blood off his right hand, walked to the fire pit, and wiped his hand clean with the ashes nearby.

"Hardness and softness."

Su Chen sat back down, watching the dancing flames in the fire pit, savoring the battle just now.

"[Armament Haki] is extreme hardness, [Kami-e] is extreme softness."

"The [Sharingan]'s dynamic vision tracks open attacks, while [Yin Release] Mental Energy senses sneak attacks from the shadows."

A small skirmish gave Su Chen a deeper understanding of the practical combination of [Rokushiki] and [Haki].

"Ding! Killed mutated beast [Shadow Night Bat] carrying the aura of the abyss, obtained [origin points + 12]."

In his mind, the [System]'s notification sound rang out belatedly.

Su Chen ignored the faintly jumping numbers on the panel.

He leaned against the cold wall, placed the heavy iron blade across his knees, and crossed his arms over his chest.

The [Two-Tomoe Sharingan] slowly faded, returning to black pupils.

The night grew deeper.

The temperature in the wilderness dropped to freezing point.

Dull beast roars came from the distance from time to time.

Su Chen closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, and reined in most of his Mental Energy, leaving only a three-meter warning range around him.

Rest.

Waiting for dawn.

Tomorrow, he would advance deeper into the D-level ruins.