As night fell, the dark night covered the ground in an inky black.
The darkness on this night was extremely dense. There were no stars in the sky, and the moon couldn't be seen. It was an endless black, just like if a beast had swallowed all of the light.
Yet, Ye Mo grinned.
His deep black eyes, matching the gloomy night sky, were filled with extremely callous killing intent.
The moment he has been waiting for!
Wandering at night was particularly dangerous, blood beasts become much more active at this time and concealed in the shadows you wouldn't notice some of them when they attack you.
With the clear lack of vision, most cultivators in this situation would actually make a camp or hide and rest until dawn before returning to their activities and obtaining points, without a good investigative battle skill, this environment was simply too disadvantageous.
However, for Ye Mo, it was actually the best moment to go on a hunt and gather many points for one reason.
Shadow Walk.
This battle skill, in the second phase, allowed him to blend in the shadows and travel among the darkness, turning the night into an advantage rather than a drawback.
The movement battle skill specialty was concealment and assassination, in these conditions, Ye Mo was actually at his strongest in this environment, these circumstances really favored killing and increasing his score in the competition.
He would be like a fish fighting a rabbit in the sea or an eagle battling a mouse in the sky, in your natural environment, your opponent can't even hit back, this is no less than bullying the weak.
Currently, he only had 1430 points, beside encountering two other students, one of them being from the Tiger Martial Institute, the rest of his points were obtained by eliminating blood beasts.
His progression could be considered above average at best for now, which compelled him to quickly reduce the gap with the best participants during the night.
Ye Mo fully mobilized his Qi as his figure warped before mixing with the shadows on the ground, like a mass of dark liquid that fell down. Without wasting a moment, he furtively moved among the earth, the trees, the rocks and any sufaces covered in darkness by this bleak forest, looking for a prey.
Further into the forest, a student from the Sky Martial Institute sat on a log, looking at the fire he just lit and the meat from Deafening Red-Eyed Crows pierced by sharp sticks and burning right above.
"Only 1170 points, I am far from the top 100... It can't be helped, fighting a peak-tier blood beast is too difficult by myself, I have more chances to end up in its stomach. Tomorrow, I will have to target other students if I want to have a chance and finish in a good place."
"Mom and dad will be proud of me, I won't disappoint them!"
The student mumbled with determination.
Although the brightness of the fire could attract blood beasts, he didn't care, in contrary he would be more than happy to see them deliver points to him of their own volition.
He also welcomed other participants, as long as they weren't the top students of each institute, he was positive in his ability to face them.
The only slight apprehension he had was against rank 1 peak-tier blood beasts, but even then, he possessed a good movement battle skill and was confident he could escape from them.
Behind him, his shadow danced beside the fire, flickering constantly.
Suddenly, a person emerged from this shadow and stood behind him.
Without a single word, the silent person lightly swiped with the side of his hand, hitting the neck of the cultivator.
The movement seemed casual, but contained tremendous force.
In an instant, the student of the Sky Martial Institute was hit and his neck bended in an odd way, the neck bones protruding on the other side as his head rested sideway against his left shoulder.
He was still making plans to gather a lot of points tomorrow when he suddenly met his demise without even understanding what happened.
Heavens are cold and cruel, cultivators of this land battled mercilessly and by manipulating Qi, they possessed myriads of abilities, many would worry about the future and considering their next steps without realizing their time has come.
Before reaching the peak, you can never be truly safe no matter how much precautions you take, sometimes charging ahead fearlessly and giving your best was more beneficial than taking a reserved stance and overthinking everything.
As long as the benefits overweighted the risks, it was worth making a move, even if you fail there is nothing to lament about.
Ye Mo picked the token of the student, pleasantly surprised by the amount of points, before transferring them to his.
At the end of the first day, the survivors already accumulated quite much. As time pass, taking points from other students will become even more beneficial until hunting blood beasts will barely have any value anymore, students would only bother attacking each other.
Ye Mo picked a deafening red-eyed crow skewer that he devoured in a few mouthful while walking away, then he tossed the stick behind him and merged with the shadows once again.
Evidently, he didn't use the Nine Revolutions Fiend Body on anyone, similar to the Tiger Martial Institute recruitment competition, he was convinced the students were observed or that what happened here would be noted down for the higher-ups.
Not far from this place, a student of the Tiger Martial Institute wandered disoriented.
The night quickly descended and caught him off guard, he didn't know his position or in what direction he was going, ultimately looking for a good place to hide and survive the night.
Internally, he regretted not picking an investigative battle skill to scan his surroundings, trying to increase his battle strength at all costs instead which laid him in his current predicament.
At this moment, an ominous shadow loomed over him, quickly turning into a youth with spiky black hair who raised his fist and bashed his skull in, dyeing the grasses red.
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Wherever he went, Ye Mo killed students indiscriminately, without minding from which institute they belonged.
Once he found one, he would quickly eliminate another contestant, but not only as he also targeted high and peak-tier blood beasts.
In another part of the forest, a peak-tier Innate Fusion Black Bear proceeded leisurely, sometimes lowering his head to sniff the ground in an attempt to find the smell of a prey, then continuing on his way when he didn't sense anything.
It was enormous, with thick deep black fur and an enormous body.
When it stood on its hind legs, it was over 20 feet tall, a towering height that added to its intimidating aura, spreading fear to its ennemies.
Yet, even the superior senses of the blood beast failed to notice the cultivator stealthily approaching until it mixed with the darkness below the bear's position.
In a flash, Ye Mo rose from the shadows with exceptional momentum, the fingers of his hand tightly knit together, using his arm like a spear as he directly penetrated the bear's torso and pierced its heart before it could react.
The bear, as a peak-tier blood beast, displayed incredible vitality as even with a ruined heart, it still retaliated, using its paw to strike the assailant.
Ye Mo quickly raised his arm and used his wrist guard to protect himself, but the force behind the bear's reprisal was so high he was still sent flying across the scene, crashing against a tree behind him before dropping down on the ground.
The bear looked at the crash site with intense hatred, but also reluctance and discomfort.
It slowly made one step forward then a second before quickly vascillating and falling down on the side, the remaining life in his eyes dissipating.
On the ground beside the tree, Ye Mo stood up, spitting a clunk of blood on the ground while patting his clothes and operating Endless Vitality battle skill, his eyes locked on the 500 additional points on his token.
In just two hours, he gained more than three times the points he accumulated in the day.
He didn't know it, but at this time, his name was quickly rising in the rankings of the competition, though it wasn't well placed enough to attract anyone's attention.
Beside a few relatively famous juniors, only the top 100 truly interested the spectators.
Ye Mo didn't lose time and after a few minutes, he looked one last time at the bear's corpse then fused with the shadows and returned to his hunt, completely healed.
He recalled when he enrolled in the Tiger Martial Institute, just a mid-tier blood beast could pose him some problems and he was chased by a two-headed crocrodile until he reunited with the instructors.
Now, after a year, not even peak-tier blood beasts could stop him.
Although he took the bear by surprise and dealt a mortal blow from the start, he was confident he would still defeat it in a fair fight, it would just take more time and efforts which wasn't profitable.
In the following hours, killing ensued across the forest as powerful blood beasts, together with several students were eliminated by a hidden assassin.
With each kill, he also took hold of their spatial pouch, but nothing interesting could ever be found.
In such an unforgiving competition, no one was careless enough to move around with their valuables, morover, most participants were members of clans or family of cultivators and could safeguard their belongings at home, protected by their relatives.
Every time Ye Mo looked in a spatial pouch, he would only find minor pills that accelerated the healing process or the recovery of Qi, things that any student could easily obtain, beside them it contained mostly food, clothes or first aid necessities, but nothing that caught his eyes.
After another victim killed under the concealment of Shadow Walk, Ye Mo roamed the Jade Forest at the research of another student when he noticed someone walking on a clear plain in open view.
It was too dark to make out the details however, Ye Mo didn't hesitate at this moment and quickly approached.
Drawing closer, Ye Mo noticed the man displayed a long bow placed on his back, but without a quiver nor any arrows.
His black hair were drawn back and tied up behind his head, swaying with the wind.
Ye Mo approached from his blind spot, certain he couldn't turn around in time to see him, he attacked!
His figure surged up from the darkness on the ground when he pounced on the cultivator without making a sound.
He was so close from the man that he could directly grab his head and crush it in his hand, but when he moved for the kill, an unforeseen change caught him off guard.
A big slit appeared and parted open on the neck of the cultivator, revealing a grotesquely big eye the size of a ricebowl, looking straight at him.
"I have been discovered!" Ye Mo understood there was no time and although he was surprised by the situation, he quickly accelerated his movement, his hand advancing even faster towards the head of the archer.
Yet, at this moment, the unknow participant turned around lightning-fast, taking hold of his bow while using its limb in opposition to block Ye Mo's hand.
What seemed like a simple recurved wooden bow should have shattered confronting Ye Mo's strike, however, it remained steadfast in contact with the palm, efficiently blocking it.
Obviously, this outwardly plain bow was far from ordinary.
"Hehehe, another fellow participant, have you been using this battle skill to ambush people the whole time? You must have collected a lot of points with this method, well, you're out of luck going against me." The cultivator smiled brilliantly as he looked at Ye Mo while removing his upper garments.
"I am not interested." Ye Mo said plainly watching the student as he channeled his Qi internally in anticipation of the impending battle.
"Please, don't misunderstand me." The young cultivator commented with a wry smile when all over his body, innumerable eyes of various size opened on his skin.
Some were big, some were small, a few were slanted while others were round, but all of them had a deep yellow-orange tint with the pupil being a small black slit.