Autophagy

Song Lei turned his head towards the place that the footsteps came from.

"Well well... Who do we have here?" A charming voice resounded. Song Lei frowned. Because of the way the lights were placed and the robe she wore, the woman's face couldn't be seen. Song Lei didn't answer and raised The Banisher.

"My... You're quite the aggressive one huh? Well... That's rude. After killing all of my shells, you still want to penetrate me with your sword..."

Song Lei's mouth twitched at the woman's words. However, he didn't lose his focus. She might as well have been trying to distract him.

They stared at each other for some time without saying anything. In the end, the woman sighed deeply.

"You seemed like quite the innocent one. And here I thought that I would be able to deceive you easily..." She muttered to herself. Hearing her words, Song Lei was actually relieved. It was better that she had exposed her intentions by herself.

"Well... Boy. We don't have anything against each other. Just hand me the gemstone, then you can die without feeling any pain. Hell... It might even be filled with pleasure for you..."

"Just get to the point. I'm not giving you the gemstone or am I dying. If you are going to kill me anyway, just start attacking," Song Lei cut her off. He didn't want to deal with this woman's monologues any longer.

"Hmm..."

The woman stopped talking just like Song Lei wanted. She instead started walking towards him with firm steps.

*Swoosh

Suddenly, the woman disappeared from Song Lei's sight. Song Lei didn't bother to look around and rolled forward. Fortunately, he was able to avoid the woman's attack by a hair's breadth.

"You've great reflexes. Or should I say... Some kind of battle sense?"

Song Lei got up from the ground and looked at the woman's now visible face. To be honest, the woman had one of the most beautiful faces Song Lei had ever seen. She could easily compete with the highest-level beauties in the Old World. Her pinkish hair and yellow eyes were also really charming and exotic. Furthermore, her hair seemed incredibly natural. The New World was a truly absurd place. Song Lei had never imagined that he would meet a person with natural pink hair color.

Taking a deep breath, Song Lei decided that it wouldn't do any good for him to keep being reactive. He knew that this person was incredibly strong from the way she had instantly appeared behind him.

Taking a look at the system notification that was flashing next to his face, Song Lei smirked.

[Body has reached 10! Milestone skill has been acquired: "Adrenal Rush"]

In the current situation he was in, he was at an absolute disadvantage. He had to use everything he had in the best way possible if he wanted to beat this woman.

Acquiring such an active skill was new for Song Lei. Yes, he had the skill The Master, however, it was a word-activated skill. He would have to shout its name before using it. This new skill, however, could be activated by using his mind. It was like any other motor function of his body. As long as he thought of using it, his body would start using it.

What it did was pretty easy to understand from its name. It would put Song Lei in a rush state for a certain amount of time. However, if this amount of time was longer than Song Lei's body could handle, not very funny things like his veins rupturing or his heart exploding could happen.

Considering this, Song Lei knew that he had to be incredibly careful. Focusing on his adrenal gland, he felt his body temperature and heart rate quickly rising. He opened his eyes calmly. They were tranquil, without any wavering in them. The adrenal rush skill seemed to be adjusting the effects of the adrenaline on his body so that Song Lei was calmer than ever.

Seeing him start sweating and blushing, the woman smiled widely.

"What happened boy? Did you get entranced by my beauty?" She asked. Song Lei tensed his muscles and launched forward. All of his muscles were rumbling and making stretching sounds. He felt that if he had used this skill before raising his body stat to 10, his bones would probably snap without being able to withstand his muscle strength.

Song Lei disappeared just as fast as the woman, appearing in front of her. This must've surprised her as her eyes widened. She wasn't that easy to beat though. Instantly reacting to Song Lei, she brought up her hand.

*Clang

Seeing that his attack was blocked, Song Lei jumped back and opened the distance between them. He had to make sure that he didn't get close to the fox fires. He focused his eyes to see what his sword had been blocked by.

The woman's nails had lengthened and turned into a claw. Her face was a bit sharper and her eyes had turned red. Her wrist seemed to be a little swollen.

"Woah! You are much more powerful than I thought. It will be a bit hard to beat you I guess..." The woman muttered to herself. Song Lei didn't let her make a move of her own and jumped in again. He now knew that this woman could turn her hands into claws. Fortunately, Song Lei had an incredible arm strength that the woman couldn't block without getting hurt herself.

After exchanging a few blows, Song Lei felt the adrenal rush skill taking its toll on his body. He felt like his muscles were screaming for him to stop.

The woman wasn't in that of a great situation too. Her wrists were swollen because of the flurry of attacks made by Song Lei. She was panting heavily with a smug grin on her face.

"What happened? Running out of gas already?" She asked.

Song Lei clicked his tongue at her provocation.

"Well... It doesn't matter. It seems like I need to go all out," the woman said after seeing Song Lei's reaction. Suddenly, an incredible aura started pouring out of her body. This aura had a green hue to it, just like the fox fires that were surrounding them.

The aura was flailing around like a burning flame around the woman's body. Song Lei could feel that her aura was creating airwaves around her. As he kept thinking about what was going on, a horrible idea appeared in his head.

'Is she using soul power?' He thought. Soul power was something that could only be utilized by people who had awakened their souls. This was a power that only humans possessed. Similar types of power existed that the ghosts and monsters used but none of them were as precise as human soul users.

In exchange, however, humans were born with unawakened souls. They had to awaken their souls if they wanted to utilize these techniques. Every single person had a different way of awakening their soul.

From what Song Lei had learned from Isabel, people with high enough soul power could roam freely in the New World. Song Lei was pretty sure that this woman wasn't one of those people. After all, compared to a person who could roam freely in the New World, Song Lei would be like an ant. If he were able to put up a fight against her, this meant that she wasn't that good of a soul power user.

Song Lei stared at the aura that was pouring out of the woman. Although it would probably make normal people go out of breath. It wasn't able to do such a thing to Song Lei.

"You've brought your own demise boy! I will drain you until you don't have a single drop of soul energy left!" The woman shouted. She raised her hand and pointed it towards Song Lei. As soon as she did so, the aura around her gathered to her finger and flew at Song Lei like a bullet. Song Lei, who was expecting a ranged attack, managed to dodge the soul bullet by a hair's breadth.

Bullet after bullet, Song Lei was running around to dodge every single one of them. He was incredibly restricted because of the fox fires encircling him. He still didn't know what would happen if he approached them. Because of this, he had to dodge the bullets restricted in a circle of five meters radius.

"Good! Keep jumping around like a monkey! I'm surprised you could see my soul bullets!" The woman laughed. "Maybe you've some kind of eye-related ability huh?"

Song Lei didn't have the leisure to answer as he dodged another bullet. His eyes were bloodshot because of the adrenal rush. If he kept on doing this, all of the blood veins in his body would explode.

'Fuck! This is my last chance!' Song Lei shouted inside his mind. He decided to take this gamble and launch a desperate attack on the woman.

Dodging another bullet, Song Lei raised his sword, gathered the last bits of energy that were left in his muscles, and charged in. He dodged a soul bullet again, however, as soon as he dodged the bullet, another one appeared in front of his face. It was too late to dodge.

"Fuck...!"