Another Hunter

Following their encounter with the bizarre wood-dwelling creature, Linfeng and Mala ran into a small camp–Presumably set up by bandits. Its builders were missing entirely, though. Their tents appeared to have been slashed open, but not even a single drop of blood was to be found anywhere.

The damage clearly indicated an attack of some kind, but they nonetheless wouldn’t have gone down without a fight. Especially when considering the number of tents. Unless they were all instantly incapacitated without even having a single chance to fight back, it didn’t make sense.

“Oh, oh, would you look at that!”

Like the vulture that he was, Mala’s first thought wasn’t actually about what had happened, but about looting the place in its entirety, and he quickly got his hands on a rather nice-looking, two-handed axe. The weapon was heavy enough that he struggled to lift it up, but the bright-white steel its head was made out of spoke of its value. Even to someone with no concept of what the material was worth, or how good the craftsmanship of the axe actually was.

“This is the prized weapon of that one-eyed bastard! He never goes anywhere without it. He’s definitely dead if it's just sitting here by itself… Well, finders keepers”

“Be more careful of your surroundings, Mala. We don’t know if there are more of those invisible creatures around, and we have no clue what was able to make so many people disappear without shedding any blood in the process-”

Linfeng stopped himself as he glanced slightly up.

“-Found one”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

Mala looked at what Linfeng was looking at and blinked a few times.

Embedded into the trunk of a tree was the corpse of a man whose face could not possibly show more horror. It looked as though the tree itself had partly absorbed him with how neatly the cadaver appeared fused with it.

The man’s eyes were glassy and clouded. It almost looked like he had a severe case of cataract. His hands–Which hadn’t been absorbed–Seemed to be completely frozen stiff.

Scanning the trees all around the camp, Linfeng soon noticed limbs sticking out of tree trunks, or abnormal protrusions which were definitely less recognisable portions of corpses sticking out.

Linfeng may be looking for fights, but this was rather off-putting. Something had somehow slashed its way into the tents of these bandits–Probably at night–And simply overpowered them all, before somehow melding their bodies with the surrounding trees. Some of them had been placed into highly elevated spots as well.

Whatever had done this to them was either an excellent climber or was ridiculously tall. Either way, it did not bode too well...

Once Mala was done scavenging the place like a maniac, Linfeng led the way out of the forest, keeping a close eye on his surroundings, remaining vigilant all the way back…

Nothing happened, however. There was no ambush. There was no attack. No encounter. Not even a single suspicious thing happened. They returned to the town they were staying at without issue and spent a few days selling off what they had gathered.

“Are you sure you don’t want to keep the axe? I don’t get why you insist on just fighting without any weapon… They were invented to be used and maximise power output, you know? You would deal way more damage by using your strength to swing an axe. Your reach would be much longer as well”

Mala wasn’t wrong, but it just wasn’t Linfeng’s style. He wasn’t comfortable with a weapon in hand. It just made him feel cluttered and weighed down.

“Alright then, this should sell for a pretty penny, let me tell you! This thing is made out of a kind of iron that can channel energy very well, and the axe itself is a refined tool adapted to use skills from weapon cultivation techniques specifically centered around axes”

Mala was well-informed when it came to the interesting loot other bandit groups owned. He had definitely been eyeing these items so much that he basically knew their details and exact raw worth by heart.

Linfeng was still thinking about what he had seen in the woods. It had been a disturbing scene for sure, and the sight made him reconsider going back into the forest to hunt down bandits. Something else was clearly at play here.

The axe-wielding bandit Mala had mentioned had a reputation as a powerful bandit cultivator, and yet, he had been snatched and killed so swiftly that he hadn’t even gotten the occasion to grab his trusty weapon. Linfeng was probably stronger than the bandit had been, but whatever had done this had clearly also been stronger than its prey…

Lost in thought, the young cultivator glanced up to see Mala carefully placing the axe down, its great weight forcing the twink to be careful and deliberate with his motions... And in doing so, he stuck out his round backside.

…He really should bend his knees instead of his back, but the spectacle was too good for Linfeng to make a witty remark about this. He felt his manhood begin to struggle against the fabric keeping it trapped... As the lustful Yang within him began to act up, he stepped toward Mala and smacked his butt the instant he was done placing the axe down.

“Aah!”

The twink squealed in surprise, but quickly turned around to reveal a frown.

“Dickhead! Give me a heads-up before doing something like that. I almost leapt out of my skin!”

Linfeng was too horny to feel like arguing with Mala right now, and instead just swiftly moved his hands, grabbing both of the twink’s lower mounds of delight, squeezing them strongly as he pulled the effeminate bandit against his chest.

“G-Geez… What’s up with you? The sun isn’t even down yet, too many people could hear us if we…”

“Who cares if people can hear us? They can handle a little bit of noise… Take off your clothes”

Mala clicked his tongue.

“I swear… Ordering me around like this…”

The twink muttered under his breath, but obeyed nonetheless. Currently, the arm that had been broken was somewhat operational. Linfeng had managed to get his hands on something to accelerate the healing, though it wasn’t miraculous. Mala’s arm was still in a fragile state, and spent most of its time in a sling.

As such, he was quickly stark naked, his feminine body exposed in full. The bandit hadn’t even noticed that his skin had gotten smoother, and that his body hair seemed to not to want to grow back since he had last shaved.

Such were the effects of being bedded by Linfeng and being affected by his ability to absorb Yang.

The cultivator pulled out his wyrm and slowly stroked it as he watched Mala get in position to receive a good pounding obediently.

“Let’s try something different today. Instead of Holy Style, we’ll go for Bestial”