Chương 37: They’re Already Coming (2/3)

The freezing rain was relentless, pounding down through the skeletal canopy of the Black-Ash Marsh with merciless rhythm, each droplet striking his bare, blistering skin like frozen needles. The sound was a constant percussion—a violent hiss and spatter against stone, wood, and flesh that drowned out even the distant croaking of marsh toads.

During the thermal array explosion, his heavy rain-cloak had been completely vaporized, the treated fabric disintegrating in an instant of searing heat. His underlying tunic was now little more than charred, useless rags clinging stubbornly to his broad shoulders, the blackened threads barely holding together across his chest and arms.

Normally, exposure to these elements—the bone-deep cold, the relentless downpour, the wind cutting through the marsh like a blade—would induce severe hypothermia within minutes. But Shi Yan's newly acquired [50 Physique] operated like an internal nuclear reactor, a furnace burning hot enough to warp the very air around him.

As the icy rainwater struck his collarbone, streaming down from his jaw in rivulets, it didn't even have the chance to run down his back. It instantly hissed with a sharp, whistling sound, flashing into thick white steam the millisecond it made contact with his skin. The vapor rose in ghostly coils, twisting upward through the rain before dissipating into the gray mist above.

He had crossed the first major threshold of Tier-2. He wasn't just Kindling anymore—that flickering, uncertain flame struggling to survive. He had breached the second minor realm, stepping into territory where mortals became something fundamentally other.

But why, even then, do I still feel cold?

The contradiction gnawed at him. His skin radiated enough heat to vaporize water on contact, yet beneath that scalding surface, somewhere deep in his marrow, a persistent chill lingered—an emptiness the System's enhancements hadn't quite filled.

Thus, before leaving the village to set up his ambush, he had recognized the immediate necessity of insulation. Walking through the marsh as a living steam beacon was tactically suicidal.

After acquiring the [Blood-Ignition Flash Step], he hadn't cared who was watching.

He had calmly stepped over the groaning, disoriented villagers—their tear-streaked faces turned away from him in fear or exhaustion—and dug through the surviving Silk & Ash Chamber crates with methodical precision until he found a heavily folded merchant's traveling coat made of dark, waterproofed beast leather. The material was thick and supple, smelling faintly of tanning oils and the musk of whatever creature had donated its hide.

He threw the dense black coat over his shoulders with a practiced motion, the weight settling comfortably across his back. He cinched the belt tight around his waist, pulling the heavy fabric close. The thick material immediately trapped the violent heat radiating from his skin, creating a sealed pocket of scorching air between leather and flesh. The rolling steam that had wreathed him like a shroud vanished, suppressed beneath the coat's insulating layers, effectively masking his thermal signature.

And now, back to the present, his eyes—dark and unblinking despite the rain streaming down his scarred face—scanned over the hovering blue status screen before him. The translucent interface hung in his vision like a heads-up display, its letters crisp and clinical against the murky backdrop of the swamp.

[Host Entity:] Foreign Soul Merged [Heavenly Alignment:] NULL (Daoless) [Vessel Status: STABLE] [Current Dao Embers: 11, 275] [ATTRIBUTES] Physique: 50 (Tier-2 Middle, Roaring Hearth) Might: 45 (Tier-2 Early, Kindling) Agility: 45 (Tier-2 Early, Kindling) Spirit: 5 (Mortal Baseline) Anomaly: 10 (Daoless Trait Amplified) [SYSTEM DIRECTIVES & TRAITS] Host's internal temperature has exceeded mortal baselines. Cardiovascular output operates at 400% capacity.

Passive leak suppressed by physical density, but active combat will weaponize ambient heat.

Roaring Hearth.

Shi Yan closed his eyes, taking a slow, measured breath that misted white even within the protective cocoon of his coat. He could feel it—the transformation humming beneath his skin like a live wire. The hollow gnawing of the 'Sieve Effect' was still there, that perpetual draining sensation that had plagued him since his arrival in this world, but it wasn't a sputtering, dying spark anymore.

It feels like someone shoveled coal straight into my ribs and struck a match.

His blood felt unnaturally thick, pumping through his veins like molten iron with each powerful beat of his heart. He could sense it coursing through his arteries—hot, dense, viscous—carrying strength to every fiber of his reconstructed body. The physical power humming beneath his skin was intoxicating, a heady rush that made his fingers flex involuntarily, testing the new limits of his frame.

The problem was...

If I walk through the swamp right now, anyone with Qi-sense or thermal tracking is going to see an active volcano. I'll be a walking beacon.

While pondering this tactical liability, he moved silently through the thick marsh water beneath the ancient cypress trees, each step deliberate and measured. The water came up to mid-calf, its surface slick with algae and dotted with rotting vegetation. The mud beneath sucked at his boots with wet, obscene sounds, but he navigated the terrain with practiced ease, his weight distributed to minimize noise. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road.

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The Cloud-Mirror Sect, huh.

His eyes narrowed against the rain as the fog grew denser around him, the air tasting sharply of sulfur and rot on his tongue—the distinctive reek of stagnant water mixed with decaying plant matter and something else, something older and fouler that seemed to seep from the very bones of the marsh itself.

They aren't going to send any weakest disciples to scrub a classified mess.

His jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath the scarred line of his cheek.

A Late Tier-2 Inner Elder is likely leading them, a White-Hot minor realm, maybe… even Peak. And the rest? Obsidian-Frame cultivators, at the absolute minimum, perhaps...

He could picture it clearly: pristine white robes untouched by mud, spiritual swords hovering at their backs, faces set in that particular expression of righteous condemnation that Orthodox cultivators wore like a uniform.

If he waited for them at the village, the collateral damage of a high-tier Daoist battle would be catastrophic. Buildings would be reduced to kindling. The spiritual shockwaves alone could liquefy the organs of anyone standing too close.

But a sudden pang of self-awareness halted his steps for a fraction of a second, his boot freezing mid-stride above the murky water.

Wait. Since when do I care about collateral damage?

The thought struck him with uncomfortable clarity. In his previous life—in the operations he'd run, the objectives he'd completed—civilian casualties had been a calculated risk, a number on a report, regrettable but sometimes unavoidable.

He scoffed internally, the sound trapped behind his teeth, then sighed, his breath fogging thickly as he looked up at the gloomy sky above. The gray clouds roiled overhead, pregnant with more rain, the cypress branches scratching against each other in the wind like skeletal fingers.

The earth... was too peaceful... but now... this isn't Earth.

He closed his eyes for a moment, rain streaming down his face in cold rivulets that traced the old ridges of scar tissue. The water ran into the hollow of his closed eyelids before spilling over.

No, he wasn't moving the fight out of the village to save them. He was doing it for himself. The realization settled with cold finality.

If I fight in the village clearing, I give them an open plaza.

His boots resumed their movement, sliding silently through the mud with barely a whisper of displaced water.

Those cultivators love their distance. They'll just hover fifty feet in the air, summoning flying swords, and kite me with elemental attacks until my stamina breaks.

He'd seen it before—how these cultivators fought. They treated combat like an art form, maintaining elegant distance while their techniques did the dirty work. No brawling. No grappling. Just effortless superiority maintained through altitude and range.

So... I can't let them establish a perimeter.

But, all of that was still acceptable—tactically suboptimal but manageable.

What was not was...

His expression darkened, jaw setting harder.

Worse, the Chamber loot is sitting in that clearing. If a stray Daoist spiritual attack incinerates those crates, my paycheck evaporates.

The thought made his fingers curl into a fist at his side, knuckles creaking with the pressure.

Beside, what he hated most was actually this: recalling how, when he planned the fight with the Physician, it had been almost perfect—every variable accounted for, every contingency mapped—it just then…

His teeth ground together audibly.

Meaningless variables. I absolutely hate variables.

Villagers panicking at the wrong moment. Uncle Chen's interference. The crystal coffin's unexpected positioning. Every uncontrolled element was a potential mission failure, a random factor that could cascade into disaster.

Villagers, the loot, everything is a variable that can somehow create a magical effect that causes failure.

Thus, now, he selected his ambush site roughly five miles out from the village, directly straddling the main arterial road leading into the swamp. His tactical mind had mapped the terrain during his initial approach, cataloging choke points and kill zones with professional detachment.

And also, it's my turn to use the terrain advantage.

It was a dense, suffocating grove of ancient, rotting cypress trees where the black mud swallowed a man up to his knees with greedy suction. The trees grew so close together their roots formed a natural maze, their trunks slick with moss and fungal growths that glowed faintly in the gloom. The air here was thicker, harder to breathe, laden with spores and decay. A perfect natural choke point.

The Orthodox cultivators, draped in their pristine white silks and obsessed with purity, would refuse to trudge through the waist-deep necrotic bogs—the very idea of sullying their robes with marsh filth would be anathema to their sensibilities. Instead, they would be funneled neatly into marching in a narrow, single-file column along the only patch of solid, elevated bedrock that cut through the grove like a raised spine.

It was a fatal funnel.

Looking down the narrow path—a strip of gray stone barely three feet wide, slick with rain and flanked on both sides by treacherous mud—he felt it was perfect. His soldier's instincts sang with approval at the setup. But then he paused, his gaze dropping inward to the [Dao Embers] payload sitting in his internal reserves like unspent ammunition.

It's time to do some upgrading of my own.

He stopped behind the thick, gnarled roots of a massive cypress tree, its trunk easily fifteen feet in diameter and scarred with age. The roots formed a natural shelter, keeping the worst of the rain off as he pressed his back against the rough bark.

System...

His eyes refocused on the blue interface, mentally scrolling through the numbers with practiced efficiency.

If 50 [Physique] breached the second minor realm of Tier-2, then pushing to 55 should solidify the foundation. Or perhaps bring me close to the third minor realm of Tier-2.

But my [Might] and [Agility] are still lagging behind at 45.

The imbalance nagged at him. Uneven stats meant uneven performance, weak points that could be exploited. In a fight against multiple Tier-2 cultivators, any weakness would be found and hammered mercilessly.

Then...

His jaw set with determination, rain dripping from his chin onto the sodden leather of his coat.

System, help me. Calculate the cost to bring all three physical attributes to a flat 55.

He waited as the interface processed his request, the blue text flickering briefly before new lines appeared with mathematical precision.

[System Calculation Request: Confirmed.] [Tier-2 Exponential Scaling Rules Apply.] [Might: 45 → 50 (5 pts × 150) = 750 Embers] [Agility: 45 → 50 (5 pts × 150) = 750 Embers] [Physique: 50 → 55 (5 pts × 300) = 1, 500 Embers] [Might: 50 → 55 (5 pts × 300) = 1, 500 Embers] [Agility: 50 → 55 (5 pts × 300) = 1, 500 Embers] [Total Deduction: 6, 000 Dao Embers. Remaining Reserve: 5, 275] He didn't immediately confirm.

Instead, he looked at the prices with calculating eyes, his expression unreadable beneath the shadow of his hood.

So it becomes 300 [Dao Embers] per stat point now, huh...

His eyes furrowed, the scarred tissue crinkling slightly at the corners.

Inflation...

The exponential scaling was brutal. Every threshold crossed made the next one geometrically more expensive. At this rate, reaching Tier-3 would cost a fortune in Embers.

He sighed, a long exhalation that fogged heavily in the cold air, but having 5, 275 [Dao Embers] remaining was still a massive war chest—more than enough to act as an emergency healing fund if something went catastrophically wrong, or to quickly level up my technique proficiencies in the heat of combat.

The math checked out. The tactical reserve was sufficient.

Yes, confirm.

[Allocation Confirmed. 6, 000 Dao Embers consumed.] [Initiating localized cellular reconfiguration...] Once it confirmed, the miracle happened, hitting him like alternating waves of agonizing trauma and pure physiological euphoria that crashed through his nervous system in rhythmic pulses.

First came the alignment of his existing lagging stats.

As [Might] and [Agility] breached the 50-point threshold simultaneously, the reaction was drastically different from his earlier healing. Where the bone reconstruction had been a grinding, methodical agony, this was sharp and electric.

His central nervous system felt like it had been plunged into a vat of ice water, every nerve ending screaming at once in synchronized shock.

Heaven— He inhaled sharply through clenched teeth, his pupils contracting to pinpricks as the sensation overwhelmed his senses. His hand shot out instinctively, gripping the rough bark of the cypress trunk hard enough to make the wood creak. It didn't burn; it shocked—a full-body electrocution that made his muscles spasm involuntarily.

The synaptic pathways connecting his brain to his extremities violently rerouted themselves, forcefully stripping away his baseline mental latency like tearing out old wiring and replacing it with superconductors. He could feel it happening—actual physical sensation as neural connections rewrote themselves at the cellular level.

Ugh... My brain is overclocking. I can practically feel the neurons splicing.

He blinked hard, once, twice, and the falling rain around him seemed to visually slow down in his perception, individual droplets hanging sluggishly in the air like suspended glass beads. He could track their descent, count them, see the way each one fractured the light differently. Time hadn't actually slowed—his processing speed had increased.

Simultaneously, the muscle fibers along his arms and legs violently tightened beneath his skin, twisting together like braided steel cables being drawn taut by invisible hands. He could feel each individual fiber contracting, compacting, the sensation crawling up his limbs like thousands of insects burrowing through his flesh. His tendons compacted, shortening fractionally but gaining terrifying density in the process.

Ghh— A suppressed grunt tore from his throat, his teeth grinding together so hard he tasted copper. His free hand clenched into a white-knuckled fist, fingernails digging crescents into his palm.

He felt an agonizing, crushing pressure in his major joints—shoulders, elbows, hips, knees—as if invisible industrial winches were ratcheting his ligaments to their absolute breaking point. The cartilage in his joints compressed, restructured, reinforced to handle loads no human body was meant to bear.

He gritted his teeth harder, accepting the agony with grim determination. His body was being ruthlessly optimized to unleash terrifying amounts of raw kinetic energy in a fraction of a second—transformed from a merely enhanced human into something approaching a living weapon.

But the System wasn't done.

[Baseline Established. Pushing Attributes to 55.]