You'd Better Reflect on Your Own Shortcomings

Deep in the jungle at midnight, scattered fire rained from the sky, sparking little blazes here and there. Yet the fiercest flame came from the demonic fire radiating off Da Pao. Having knocked Ji Yang down once more, it gave chase immediately, intent on taking his life while he was weakened. Seeing the wrench held high above, Ji Yang was scared out of his wits. "Again?!" *Does he really have to kill me?!* This was the most basic law of survival among the demons of the wasteland zone. It wasn't necessarily born of some deep-seated grudge, but once a fight began, one had to finish the opponent off for good! Otherwise, letting a tiger return to the mountain meant an extra formidable enemy down the road! At this life-or-death juncture, Ji Yang unleashed tremendous potential. Seeing the wrench about to crash down on his skull, flames erupted around him. With a roaring blast, he burst into a flurry of fire meteors scattering in every direction. Sparks flew everywhere, leaving no clue as to which one concealed his true body. Watching the countless fire meteors explode across the woods, Da Pao froze, momentarily at a loss. The reason it had been able to pinpoint where Ji Yang was hiding earlier was that whenever an opponent prepared to attack, they would release a formless, intangible "qi aura." That qi aura locked onto Da Pao, which in turn allowed Da Pao to trace it back and lock onto Ji Yang's location. Cultivators with stronger divine sense could also detect qi auras, though they weren't quite as sensitive as demon beasts of the same caliber. Now, however, Ji Yang was solely focused on escaping. With his qi aura no longer directed at Da Pao, the roe deer was left helpless against the elusive Shadow Profound supernatural power. It stood in the woods looking left and right for a long time. Once certain Ji Yang had fled far away, it finally turned and stalked off in frustration. What neither combatant knew was that just moments ago, the viewer count in Ji Yang's personal livestream room had skyrocketed. To begin with, far fewer viewers watched streams late at night, and his personal channel had never been popular, leaving only a meager handful of stray watchers earlier. Yet after crossing paths with Da Pao and getting into a scrap, he had actually been sent flying by a wrench-wielding demon beast. The main broadcast happened to catch this very moment. The night-owl viewers instantly sat up with interest, but just as Ji Yang moved to counterattack, the feed abruptly went black. Now the bullet comments went wild! Viewers began guessing what had happened. [...] [Earlier today people were saying it was boring, that these demon beasts were way too weak and couldn't compare to the real wasteland zone at all. And now we get this?!] [Heavens, Hidden Dragon Pool is a famous immortal sect, isn't it? Did he really get beaten to death by a kangaroo?] [Probably not. It looked like an area-of-effect supernatural power accidentally burned the bee insect to ashes.] [Kangaroo? Isn't that a deer demon?] [That's a kangaroo at first glance!] [It's a deer!] [Hundreds of lines of debate omitted here...] [Hey, are you guys out of your minds? The guy's life is hanging in the balance, and the chat is arguing over whether it's a kangaroo or a deer? Is that the point?!] [You up there, then tell us what that monster is!] [Uh... is it possible it's a roe deer?] [Hahaha, what kind of joke is that?] [Are you stupid? Where did a roe deer come from?] [Seriously though, with demon beasts this strong around, this wasteland zone feels way too real.] [Yeah, maybe those demon beasts were never weak to begin with—it's just that Ruthless Bro is ridiculously overpowered.] [He one-shotted so many demon beasts with a single sword slash that it gave us the illusion they're all pushovers.] [Kinda miss Ruthless Bro now. Let's go see what he's up to.] [I'm gonna send him gifts!] [...] If Ji Yang had known that the traffic surge he earned by fighting for his life ultimately drove a wave of viewers to Yue Wen's personal stream, who knew how he would have felt. At this moment, still shaken from the ordeal, he was hiding in a rocky crevice, arguing with the production crew through his earpiece. "That demon beast was definitely abnormal! It saw through my supernatural power and nearly beat me to death!" "Calm down first. We didn't capture the entire fight, only the beginning. This batch of demon beasts is somewhat stronger, so it's normal if you found it difficult," the director replied rather coldly. "We've already dispatched a Gang Realm expert to search for it. But until we fully evaluate the danger level, there's no need to disrupt the normal broadcast." Ji Yang yelled, "You people definitely screwed something up! I had no way to fight back against that kangaroo demon! I only escaped because my sect's supernatural power happens to be top-tier! Anyone else would've died on the spot!" "Ji Yang..." The director paused for a moment before saying, word by word, "That's a deer demon." "Is that the point?!" Ji Yang roared. "Besides, I took two hits from its wrench! How could I mistake it?!" "It's a deer." "It's a kangaroo!" "Wait," the director said suddenly. "Another contestant ran into the deer demon." ... "Hmm?" Resting against a tree branch in the darkness, Zhao Xing'er sensed an approaching demonic aura. She snapped her eyes open, a faint red glow surfacing within them. A few dozen meters away, a dazed-looking kangaroo head carrying a hammer walked past. Behind her Ultraman mask, Zhao Xing'er's gaze was sharp as lightning, boring straight into it. That hammer-toting kangaroo head was, of course, Er Pao. He was busy looking for the two targets Huang Dahu had assigned him and hadn't planned on paying attention to the female human in the strange mask up in the tree. Besides, that human couldn't possibly be the target he was after—the target had a face. Little did he expect that Zhao Xing'er's senses would be so sharp. Zhao Xing'er tilted her head. "There are kangaroo spirits here too? Why does it look so silly?" "Who are you calling... a 'roo'?" Er Pao's eyes instantly turned crimson. "And you called me silly... Wa-ya-ya..." The enraged roe deer demon burst into five-meter-tall demonic flames, blazing upward toward the heavens! It had changed its mind. It was going to smash this female human's head in! "What are you getting mad about?" Seeing the kangaroo head opposite her erupt in scorching demonic flames with clear hostility, Zhao Xing'er narrowed her eyes. "You disturbed my sleep and I'm not even mad yet, but you lose your temper first?" Thinking back to how hard she had worked all afternoon, prying open several treasure chests only to find them all fake, and finally finding a quiet spot to catch a nap after dark only to be stealthily woken up by this silly, ferocious-looking kangaroo head... The red glow in Zhao Xing'er's eyes blazed even brighter. The battle ignited in an instant! A monster of few words, the roe deer leaped high into the air, hurtling forward like a streak of gray lightning. Zhao Xing'er vaulted into the air with a swish. Flipping her hand, she summoned a Green Dragon Crescent Blade, but thinking it might not let out enough steam, she put it away. Instead, she summoned a massive golden melon hammer, gripping it with both hands like swinging a small mountain. Drum-Beating Golden Urn Hammer! "Haah—!" Zhao Xing'er roared. "Waking people up in the middle of the night shows zero manners, you bastard!" Under the moonlight, her body arched back like a drawn bow. Sweeping the giant hammer in a full circle, she brought it crashing down in a blazing red arc! The surging red light rippled through the air, coalescing into the phantom of a burly, armored general. Martial true body! Leaping midair with his claw hammer raised, Er Pao saw the colossal hammer crushing down like a falling sky, and suddenly realized something was amiss. If the claw hammer in his hand had known upon its forging that it would one day clash against the Drum-Beating Golden Urn Hammer, it probably would have felt immense pride, right? *Boom—!* The red light erupted, sending a shockwave rippling through the air. The roe deer brothers possessed no martial cultivation methods; surviving in the wasteland zone depended entirely on their raw strength, speed, defense, and instincts, all of which were exceptionally high. Yet today, it had run into Zhao Xing'er. A Zhao Xing'er whose martial spirit red glow had been ignited purely by being woken up. *Boom-crash!* Er Pao, who had charged in like lightning, was sent hurtling right back into the ground. Quick to come, quick to go. The tremendous force of that hammer slammed Er Pao into the earth, embedding half his body deep into the soil. The ground cracked in shock, spiderwebbing across a hundred-meter radius as jagged black fissures snaked all the way to the edge of sight. Only then did the red light in Zhao Xing'er's eyes fade. Stowing her hammer away, she looked down at the massive crater. After the dust cleared, a minute of dead silence passed before a cracked hand clapped down onto the rim of the pit, hauling itself out from the depths. "Not dead yet?" Zhao Xing'er raised an eyebrow. "Ah..." Covered in cracks, Er Pao hauled himself out of the crater. Panting heavily, he stared blankly at Zhao Xing'er, then suddenly bowed. "I am sorry for disturbing your rest." "Wouldn't it have been better if you were this polite from the start?" Zhao Xing'er snapped crossly. "I am merely a little roe deer who hasn't seen much of the world. Please don't hold it against me." Er Pao had not only become polite; he was speaking far more fluently. "So you're not a kangaroo..." Zhao Xing'er said in surprise. "You're the legendary silly roe deer?" Er Pao nodded. "That's right, that's me." "Even so, you're an evil entity. I still can't let you go," Zhao Xing'er said. "Look who's behind you?" Er Pao said suddenly. "Who?" Zhao Xing'er turned around, only to find empty air. When she turned back, Er Pao had already whipped around and fled into the distance, leaving behind two billowing plumes of dust. "A silly roe deer that knows military tactics!" Zhao Xing'er exclaimed. "Where do you think you're running!" Stretching her legs, she took off in hot pursuit. Though she could ride the wind, for someone of her formidable physique, good old-fashioned sprinting was the way to unleash maximum speed. He fled, she chased! No escape even with wings! ... Setting aside how the netizens marveled at Star Heroine's might after seeing this scene on the main broadcast, the director immediately patched back into Ji Yang's earpiece. "How is it?" Ji Yang asked, his tone practically screaming 'I told you so.' "They're definitely in mortal danger too, right?" "First, that wasn't a kangaroo, it was a roe deer," the director said. "Second, while that roe deer demon isn't the same one you encountered, its appearance and cultivation seem roughly identical... Star Heroine cracked it open in a single strike. It's no different from any other demon beast." "Ji Yang, you'd better reflect on your own shortcomings."