1: Encountering a Corpse Puppet at the Start

The book has started... Welcome all esteemed patrons for your support, wishing you eternal youth... and billions in daily income.

[This novel is only about fighting... either on the way to a fight or currently fighting...]

A 'putrid stench', like countless red-hot needles, brutally pierced his nasal cavity, stabbing straight into his brain.

Lin Jingyu choked violently amidst the suffocating stench, his heavy, sticky eyelids struggling to open a crack.

Cold, slimy, with a sickening elasticity—his occiput was resting on something like that.

Beneath him, he was deeply sunken into a soft, wet, squirming 'ground', each faint breath stirring up an even more concentrated deathly aura of decaying flesh and exposed organs.

"Ugh... bleh..." Stomach acid burned his throat.

The pale moonlight struggled to penetrate the heavy leaden clouds, casting a few miserly rays. Borrowing this light, his blurry, swaying vision gradually focused—

A mountain of corpses!

Layer upon layer, twisted and entangled, covering every inch of land as far as the eye could see! Torn clothes, congealed foul blood, exposed white bones... forming a scroll painting of Hell.

"This... where is this?" His throat was dry and hoarse, his voice terrifyingly unfamiliar.

Confused memory fragments, like red-hot branding irons, seared into his consciousness: one moment he was crammed on the subway on Blue Star, the next was boundless darkness, and then he opened his eyes... to this living Hell!

He tried to prop himself up, his right hand instinctively pressing down beneath him—

"Splish!"

His palm sank deep into a mass of cold, slimy, rotten flesh embedded with sharp bone fragments!

The sickening sensation instantly triggered violent spasms in his stomach.

"Ugh... ho..."

A suppressed, greedy growl, thick with the stench of decay and the smell of saliva, sounded right next to his left ear!

Lin Jingyu whipped his head around!

A face! Right in front of him!

The flesh had almost completely fallen off, revealing pale white cheekbones and a few precarious yellow teeth.

The right side of its face was swollen and black, its cloudy eyeballs, like dusty glass marbles, rotated lifelessly, finally locking onto his vulnerable throat! The putrid wind, like a tangible iron hammer, slammed into his face.

It was it!

All the hairs on his body instantly stood on end! A cold current shot from his tailbone straight to the crown of his head, his blood seemingly freezing instantly! He wanted to move, to escape, but his body was stiff as lead, unable to move even a fingertip!

The Corpse Puppet, gnawing on half an intestine, seemed to sense the awakening of 'fresh prey', and its chewing movements abruptly stopped.

"Ho—!"

It abandoned the rotten flesh, its decaying, twisted arm reaching out with slow but suffocating despair, grabbing straight for Lin Jingyu's neck!

It's over!

His pupils contracted sharply, his heart pounded wildly in his chest, almost bursting! The decaying fingertips, carrying the aura of death, came closer and closer—

Three inches!

Two inches!

"Buzz—!"

Just at this critical moment, not far from Lin Jingyu, a 'corpse' pressed underneath suddenly twitched violently!

It was a middle-aged man in tattered leather armor, covered in blood. One of his arms was almost torn off, connected only by a bit of flesh, and he had a huge laceration on his abdomen, his intestines vaguely visible.

His cloudy eyes snapped open; there was no Corpse Puppet's greed in them, only the terror of impending death and a fleeting moment of clarity before the end.

"Uh... ho... run..." He let out a wheezing sound like a broken bellows, his remaining right hand struggling to lift, pointing in Lin Jingyu's direction, then sharply pointing to a dark spot outside the pile of corpses, his eyes filled with extreme warning and pleading.

"Can't... wake... them... smell..." With every word he uttered, large gouts of foul black blood foamed from his mouth, his breath rapidly failing.

This sudden movement from a 'living person' instantly attracted the Corpse Puppet's attention!

Its movement towards Lin Jingyu paused for an extremely brief moment, its cloudy eyeballs turning towards the dying man, a confused growl emanating from its throat.

Now's the time... The instinct for survival erupted like a volcano!

Lin Jingyu used all his remaining strength, taking advantage of the split-second distraction of the Corpse Puppet, and rolled violently to his right side like a dying fish!

"Rip!"

The Corpse Puppet's sharp claws grazed his left carotid artery, the cold wind from the claws painfully scraping his skin! The sharp claws savagely dug into the shoulder blade of a corpse where he had just been lying, emitting a teeth-grinding 'crunch' of bone breaking! Rotten flesh and bone fragments splattered!

Lin Jingyu rolled, his back hitting a cold, stiff corpse heavily, using the force to spring up into a half-crouch. His heart pounded, and his lungs burned with pain.

"Ho-ah—!"

Its prey escaped, and further stimulated by the dying man's aura, the Corpse Puppet became utterly enraged!

It let out an even more ear-piercing, violent shriek, abruptly pulling its claws out of the corpse, bringing with it a spray of foul blood and minced meat, its rotting, twisted body erupting with a swiftness incongruous with its form, and pounced again towards Lin Jingyu, who had just regained his footing! The putrid wind rushed at him, more ferocious than before!

The last flicker of light in the dying Martial Artist's eyes completely extinguished, his raised arm falling limply, utterly silent.

But his appearance bought Lin Jingyu a 'fatal moment' and also brought 'a bigger mystery': Who was he? Why did he warn 'don't wake up'? What did 'they' smell?

[Ding! Detecting strong will to survive... environmental energy matches... Soul wavelength locked...]

["Martial Arts Modification System" binding... 1%... 50%... 100%!]

[Binding successful! host: Lin Jingyu!]

A cold, emotionless, yet incredibly clear synthesized female voice, without warning, boomed in the deepest part of his mind, like a thunderclap tearing through endless darkness!

Lin Jingyu was pleasantly surprised: "System..."

"Uh-ah!" Lin Jingyu let out a deep, suppressed roar from his throat, not of pain, but of power breaking through its restraints!

Those deadly Corpse Claws were only one inch from his throat!

A moment of extreme peril!

Lin Jingyu's survival instinct was completely ignited by this sudden surge of power!

His body, like a spring compressed to its limit, suddenly rolled to the right!

"Rip!"

A sharp whooshing sound grazed his left carotid artery, the cold wind from the claws painfully scraping his skin.

The Corpse Puppet's sharp claws savagely dug into the spot where he had just been lying, piercing the shoulder blade of a corpse that had long since stiffened, emitting a teeth-grinding sound of bone breaking!

Rotten flesh and bone fragments splattered!

Lin Jingyu rolled, his back hitting a cold, stiff corpse heavily, using the force to spring up into a half-crouch.

The Corpse Puppet, its attack missing, seemed utterly enraged.

It let out an even more ear-piercing, violent shriek, abruptly pulling its claws out of the corpse, bringing with it a spray of foul blood and minced meat, then turned again, its rotting, twisted body erupting with a swiftness incongruous with its form, and pounced straight at Lin Jingyu, who had just stabilized himself! The putrid wind rushed at him!

Just in this flash of lightning, the wind stirred up by Lin Jingyu's roll happened to lift the tattered clothing of a nearby corpse.

Under the moonlight, a thin booklet, bound with coarse hemp thread, was revealed.

The cover was mostly soaked with foul blood, but the few incomplete ink characters on the edge, under his extremely keen vision, clearly appeared in Lin Jingyu's eyes!

"Iron... Sand... Palm... Rem..."

Iron Sand Palm!

These three words struck his mind like lightning! Almost instinctively, Lin Jingyu's gaze locked onto the blood-stained cover of the booklet!

[Detecting learnable Martial Art: Iron Sand Palm (Incomplete)》. Record it?] The cold System prompt sounded simultaneously, carrying an undeniable tone.

"Record it!!" Lin Jingyu roared in his heart! Facing the Corpse Puppet pouncing again, this was his only lifeline!

[Recording... Martial Art analysis... core essence extraction... deduction and completion...]

[Recording complete! Iron Sand Palm (Incomplete)》 → Iron Sand Palm (Basic)》!]

[Current Status: Not Initiated (0/10 evolution points to deduce to 'Glimpse the Doorway')]

"Deduce! Deduce immediately!" Lin Jingyu roared in his consciousness!

[Consuming 10 evolution points! Deduction begins... Deduction target: Iron Sand Palm (Basic)》 → Iron Sand Palm · Century's Mastery》!]

[Deduction successful! Realm: Pinnacle of Perfection! Mastered!]

Boom!

[Realm: Body Refining Realm · Second Layer]

His palm no longer felt like flesh and blood.

It was heavy as iron, scalding like a branding iron, containing terrifying power capable of splitting stone tablets!

A century of arduous cultivation, hundreds of refinements of palm force, at this moment, was instantly infused into Lin Jingyu's hand, which had never truly practiced martial arts, by the System in an almost miraculous way!

The Corpse Puppet's sharp claws were less than half a foot from his nose! The putrid wind had already filled his nasal cavity!

"Get—out of my way!!!"

Lin Jingyu's eyes were bloodshot, and a thunderous roar erupted from his throat!

It was the roar of turning the tide in a desperate situation, the catharsis of controlling power!

He didn't dodge, didn't retreat!

His right arm, imbued with the 'Century's Mastery' Iron Sand Palm, like a steel whip charged with power, swept upwards, meeting the grabbing rotten claws with the simplest, most direct, and most violent posture, backhanding a palm strike out fiercely!

Fast! Ruthless! Fierce!

This palm strike had no fancy techniques, only brute force condensed to its extreme!

The air seemed to be violently ripped apart by this crimson hot palm, emitting a short, dull explosion!

"Thwack!!!"

The moment his palm met the head, it wasn't a collision sound, but the dull thud of a ripe fruit being instantly smashed by immense force!

Time seemed to freeze at this moment.

That rotten, hideous head, under Lin Jingyu's crimson hot palm, imbued with the power of 'Century's Mastery' Iron Sand Palm, was as fragile as a cheap clay pot!

"Bang"

The Corpse Puppet's forward momentum abruptly ceased.

[Ding! Killed a low-level Corpse Puppet! Gained evolution points +10!]

The cold System prompt sounded in his mind, pulling Lin Jingyu back to reality from this bloody and violent moment of killing.

"Hoo... hoo..." Lin Jingyu lowered his head, looking at his right hand, stained with filth and still retaining astonishing power, then looked at the headless Corpse Puppet's remains at his feet, his eyes complex.

This is power? The power to instantly master a century of martial arts cultivation, granted by the System?

Simple, brutal, effective!

One punch, one palm, shatter everything!

He shook his sticky right hand, and foul blood and brain matter splattered on the ground.

His gaze swept over the mountains of corpses piled around him; under the pale moonlight, this small depression was like a slaughterhouse from Hell.

"I can't stay here."

Lin Jingyu forced himself to calm down, his voice low and hoarse, with a tremor of having escaped death, yet also a new resolve, "The stench of blood is too strong; it will soon attract more of these things."

He suppressed the churning in his stomach and the pungent stench, and began to quickly search through the piles of corpses.

His movements were swift, his gaze sharp as an eagle.

A stained but relatively intact coarse cloth outer garment was stripped from a tall, thin corpse and roughly pulled over his almost blood-soaked single shirt, barely covering his body.

A rusty but still thick-bladed cleaver was pried from the tightly clenched hand of another corpse.

It felt heavy in his hand, the handle cold and rough, yet it brought a faint sense of security.

Finally, his gaze returned to the blood-stained booklet.

It was this incomplete Iron Sand Palm that saved his life.

He bent down to pick it up; it felt rough and cold, the bloodstains on the cover already black.

Without a glance, he tucked it into his embrace, pressing it against his chest.

Having done all this, Lin Jingyu didn't hesitate, choosing a direction away from the corpse pile, and scrambled out of this nauseating deathly depression, using both hands and feet.

Looking back from the slightly higher slope, the pile of corpses under the pale moonlight was like a giant, squirming black scab.

"Live..."

Lin Jingyu muttered to himself, his voice sounding particularly cold and hard in the night wind, "Fight my way out!"

The night was ink-black, the wilderness silent as death.

Only the wind whined, like countless departed Souls whispering.

After an unknown distance, having crossed several desolate mounds, a low silhouette finally appeared at the edge of his vision ahead.

It looked like a village.

The outlines of a few low mud houses were vaguely visible under the dim starlight and moonlight, crooked and dilapidated.

There was no light, no dog bark, not even the sound of insects.

Dead silence.

A silence deeper and more oppressive than the wilderness enveloped that direction.

Lin Jingyu's steps involuntarily slowed.

Something's wrong! Very wrong... too quiet.

Quiet like a vast cemetery.

The night wind blew through the wild grass, making a soft 'rustling' sound, and also brought a scent drifting from further away.

In the wind, there was a faint hint of... a bloody smell.

Not the intensely nauseating stench of decay from the corpse pile.

It was a fresher, iron-scented... blood smell.

Faint, yet clearly discernible.

Lin Jingyu's muscles instantly tensed, veins bulging on the back of the hand gripping the cleaver.

The silent desolate village was like a giant beast crouching in the darkness, opening its soundless maw.

He licked his somewhat cracked lips, tasting a metallic, rusty blood flavor—the Corpse Puppet's foul blood that had splattered on him earlier.

A cold, blood-tinged night wind swirled, picking up a few withered leaves, sweeping past his feet and towards the depths of that silent, desolate village.

Lin Jingyu's pupils contracted slightly in the darkness, like a tiger fixing its gaze on prey.

The bloody smell carried by the wind... grew stronger.