The first death warrior charged at her with astonishing speed, his palm aimed straight for her face.
Ye Qingyi felt a fierce gust of wind rushing toward her, blowing the loose strands of hair at her temples backward.
Her body reacted faster than her mind.
She sidestepped instinctively, and the palm grazed past her ear, the resulting air current scraping painfully against her cheek.
The palm strike hit a small tree behind her, and the trunk, as thick as a bowl, snapped with a crack.
‘Though his movements were slow, the power behind them was immense. If that palm had landed on me…’
Ye Qingyi didn’t have time to dwell on it before she heard Ye Chu’s voice, dripping with frustration.
“Don’t just dodge—hit him!”
“Even at that sluggish speed, you can’t react? While you’re dodging, throw a punch at his head!”
Ye Qingyi instinctively followed Ye Chu’s instructions and threw a punch.
This punch carried no spiritual energy, no magical assistance—it was pure physical strength.
“Boom—!!!”
The fist wind roared, and a visible shockwave exploded from her knuckles, spreading outward like a fan.
The air compressed into a white shockwave, and everything in its path—trees, rocks, the ground itself—was torn apart and destroyed.
Within a straight line of a hundred meters in front of Ye Qingyi, the ground had been plowed into a deep trench, completely empty.
Ye Qingyi stood frozen, her fist still raised, her mouth slightly agape, stunned by the power of her own punch.
“…”
She looked down at her fist, then up at the hundred-meter-long path of destruction, then back down at her fist.
“???”
What was going on?!
She had just thrown a random punch!
Ye Chu fell silent in her sea of consciousness.
In his imagination, this punch would have hit the death warrior’s head, and it would have exploded like a watermelon, splattering red and white everywhere, thoroughly intimidating Zhao Yuan and the remaining warriors.
Then he would have taught Ye Qingyi a few trash-talk lines, like “Is that all?” or “Next,” to really show off.
But what happened?
Not only did the punch miss, but its power was ridiculously off the charts!
‘Diminishing force through technique? You call this diminishing force through technique?!’
Even if it’s just raw strength, this is insane! Is this really Qi Refining Layer Three?
Something’s wrong.
Very, very wrong!
“W-What kind of monster is this…”
One of the death warriors spoke with a trembling voice.
It wasn’t their fault for being afraid.
A cultivator at Qi Refining Layer Three, punching out a hundred-meter-long path of destruction—this power far exceeded Foundation Establishment.
No, even a Golden Core cultivator’s pure physical strength wouldn’t be this ridiculous.
Such power shouldn’t exist in a girl at Qi Refining Layer Three.
It made them wonder if Ye Qingyi was really as trash as the rumors claimed.
Was she pretending to be weak to catch them off guard?
Zhao Yuan’s face also turned ugly.
He instinctively took half a step back in fear, but then steadied himself because he noticed one problem.
Ye Qingyi’s punch was indeed terrifyingly powerful, but she had missed.
A death warrior standing less than three feet in front of her, and she missed.
And from her own reaction, she was clearly surprised, meaning it wasn’t intentional… and even if it were, what did it matter?
These people were meant to die for him anyway.
Besides, he had no way back.
If she was faking it, he needed to take her down now while he could, to avoid complications later.
If she wasn’t, Ye Qingyi wouldn’t let him go anyway.
“Can’t hit anything.”
Zhao Yuan forced calm into his voice.
“No matter how great the power, if you can’t land a blow, it’s useless.”
The death warriors exchanged glances, and then one of them tentatively stepped forward.
Ye Qingyi raised her fist as a warning.
She didn’t understand what was happening, but she knew she couldn’t show weakness.
All eight death warriors moved at once.
They didn’t attack head-on.
Instead, they approached from different directions, like a wolf pack hunting a tiger, constantly harassing and shrinking Ye Qingyi’s space to maneuver.
Her fists swung out again and again, missing every time.
The fist wind slammed into the ground, blasting crater after crater.
“Damn it, sis, you can’t just attack without any pattern like this. They’ll see right through you…”
“Calm down… wait for the right moment…”
Despite Ye Chu’s constant reminders, Ye Qingyi couldn’t help reacting to the death warriors’ harassment attacks.
She couldn’t hear a word he was saying.
Ye Chu sighed.
‘Still lacking in combat experience. After this, I’ll have to make Ye Qingyi practice more real fights.’
The death warriors had gone from being terrified at first to completely relaxed.
They didn’t even need to dodge deliberately—Ye Qingyi’s attacks couldn’t hit them anyway.
Meanwhile, Ye Qingyi was being knocked around by their strikes.
“Hahaha! Can’t hit! She can’t hit!”
“What good is all that brute force?”
“This is the eldest daughter of the Ye Family? Trash is trash, even with power, she’s still trash!”
Mocking laughter came from all directions.
Ye Qingyi gritted her teeth and threw punch after punch, but each one fell just short.
Her movements grew more frantic, her openings larger, and the death warriors’ attacks grew heavier.
“Damn it!”
Ye Chu stomped in frustration in her sea of consciousness.
“How can you not hit them? They’re so slow, you could hit them with your eyes closed!”
“I can’t hit them!”
Ye Qingyi shouted in her mind.
“It feels like my body won’t obey me!”
“How can your body not obey you? You’re pretty agile when dodging their attacks!”
“I don’t know! It’s just… every time I throw a punch, I feel like it should land, but it always goes wrong!”
Ye Chu fell silent.
‘Either way, with me here, these small fries won’t do anything to Ye Qingyi. Let her learn from her mistakes for now.’
But this was very wrong.
Ye Qingyi’s body-tempering talent was something he had personally verified—second only to his own.
After a month of training, her physical condition far exceeded that of a Qi Refining Layer Ten cultivator.
Even if she lacked combat experience, she shouldn’t fail to hit even a Qi Refining Layer Six death warrior.
Unless…
Before he could think further, a heavy blow slammed into the small of Ye Qingyi’s back.
Ye Qingyi let out a muffled groan, stumbled forward two steps, and nearly fell.
Two death warriors took the chance to close in from both sides, grabbing her arms and locking her in place.
“Got her!”
Just as Ye Qingyi struggled anxiously to break free, and Ye Chu prepared to use his soul power to directly crush the death warriors’ seas of consciousness…
Ding!
An icy mechanical sound rang in Ye Qingyi’s mind:
[The Knight Does Not Die by Unarmed Hands System has been activated and fully loaded.]
Ye Qingyi froze.
What system?
She had been transported to this world for eighteen years and had never heard of any system.
[Detected a demon residing within the host.]
[Generate a demon mask, allowing the demon to take control of the host’s body and fight on your behalf?]
Without time to think, she screamed in her mind, “Yes!”
The moment the words fell, a mask, purple so dark it was nearly black, wove and condensed on her face.
It was covered in dark gold patterns, winding from her forehead down to her chin, completely covering her entire face.
The instant the mask formed, Ye Qingyi felt her body slip out of control.
No, not out of control… it was as if someone else had taken the reins.