The comments said I was deeply affectionate, I just added points by using an alternate account.

The dizziness caused by the spatial shift lasted only a moment.

The soft sound of crunching dry branches came from beneath my feet.

Chen Guan's vision returned from the distorted light and shadow.

The expected green grass and stream did not appear.

Before me lay a desolate, gray forest.

The withered and twisted trees pierced the sky, their bare branches contorted in a struggling posture.

A thick gray fog permeated the forest, reducing visibility to less than twenty meters.

The wind whistled through the treetops.

The stench of decay mingled with a faint, almost imperceptible, smell of blood, filling the nostrils.

This is not the Valley of Weeping, it's the Valley of Funerals.

[Wait, was the intelligence wrong? This is what a D-level secret realm looks like? It feels rather eerie to me.]

[With this atmosphere, I wouldn't believe it if you told me there wasn't an A-rank boss inside.]

[That's normal. If nothing unexpected happens, would it still be a protagonist? Problems would inevitably arise wherever the protagonist goes.]

[What's there to be afraid of? My brother is carrying a coffin, we have home-field advantage, okay? That's what you call a perfect match.]

"Everyone be careful, the situation doesn't match the information, the difficulty may have been increased."

An Changqing's voice rang out, and he remained as calm as ever, as if nothing had ever happened during this period.

rustle.

A sound of rustling dry leaves came from the mist to the left.

A green shadow flashed by, so fast that it was almost impossible to catch a glimpse.

It left only a trace in the air, its target being Su Yuehe on the outermost edge of the group.

She reacted quickly, and threw a fireball at him.

That shadow, however, was exceptionally cunning.

It veered in mid-air in an unnatural manner, using its four claws to gain leverage on the tree trunk before hiding itself.

"It's a Windblade Wolf." An Changqing stared in the direction the shadow disappeared. "They're testing us."

As soon as he finished speaking, pairs of eerie green eyes lit up from the surrounding mist.

They appeared and disappeared in the fog, perfectly concealing themselves with the environment, and only using a series of tricky cyan wind blades to harass from a distance.

The wind blades ripped through the air with a piercing whistling sound, carving deep grooves into the tree trunks around them, reaching the core of the wood.

Holy crap, is this wolf some kind of genius? It even knows guerrilla warfare and reconnaissance with firepower?

This person's tactical skills are even better than those of my military training instructors.

There must be a mastermind behind this.

Chen Guan stretched out one hand, his spiritual power surging.

Light and shadow intertwine with spiritual power.

A sika deer, covered in wounds and dripping with blood, materialized in an open space twenty meters in front of the group.

Even the strong smell of blood was perfectly simulated.

The sika deer ran a couple of steps in a panic, then collapsed from exhaustion.

It twitched, radiating a strong life force.

He wanted to see if these wolves were truly sentient beings.

The green light in the fog paused for a moment.

Reason and hunger clashed briefly.

Ultimately, the desire for flesh and blood overwhelmed everything.

The three-headed windblade wolf was the first to emerge from the fog.

They formed a triangular formation, taking turns providing cover as they pounced on the sika deer.

The moment they stepped into the designated area.

Su Yuehe gave a soft shout, and an invisible force spread out.

The ground beneath the three-headed windblade wolves suddenly turned into a sticky swamp, instantly halting their momentum and causing them to pause.

Long Ao's body had already been charged to its limit.

The ground beneath his feet shattered with a crash, sending dirt and rocks flying. He used the recoil to propel himself forward, his fist covered in a layer of blazing white light. With one punch, he struck the head of the leading Windblade Wolf.

boom!

The wolf's head was pierced by the force of the punch, and the entire skull shattered, splattering red and white matter everywhere.

The other two Windblade Wolves had just escaped from the swamp when they were met with a whip kick from Long Ao as he turned around.

The air was sucked out with a sound like tearing silk.

The two wolves were kicked in half at the waist in mid-air, their bodies twisted at bizarre angles before crashing to the ground.

An Changqing did not relax; he gripped his sword, his gaze still fixed on the surrounding mist.

The remaining Windblade Wolves, seeing that their sneak attack had failed and that the bait was also a trap, flickered their green eyes in the mist a few times before disappearing into the gray depths, never to be heard again.

"Well done." An Changqing exhaled a breath of stale air and nodded to Long Ao and Su Yuehe.

Long Ao grinned, walked over to An Changqing, and punched him on the shoulder.

He didn't say anything, but the wide grin and the force with which he pounded on the shoulder said it all.

Chen Guan walked towards the wolf corpses and began to skillfully dismantle them.

After carefully storing the crystal core, he stopped beside a wolf corpse that had been kicked in half by Long Ao.

He crouched down and, under the guise of checking the wound, made a cut in the wolf carcass's abdomen with his finger.

A faint herbal scent mixed with the smell of blood, not belonging to the Windblade Wolf, wafted out.

In its stomach, there were some undigested medicinal residues. He frowned slightly. This was not unprocessed medicinal material; it was a pill that had been refined by someone.

If this wolf wasn't some kind of demon capable of grabbing the medicinal herbs and refining them in an instant, then it must truly be guided by a master.

Chen Guan slowly stood up, his face showing no emotion, and his gaze swept across the ground around him.

The fallen leaves in this area were thick, covering most of the traces, but they could only fool the naked eye, not his improved mental power.

He took a few steps toward the edge and stopped at the base of a dead tree.

The fallen leaves there showed signs of having been disturbed.

He gently brushed aside the fallen leaves with his toes.

A clearly defined footprint was imprinted on the muddy ground.

Those weren't wolf paw prints.

It resembles a human footprint, but is larger than that of an average person.

The soil around the footprints was a scorched black color, indicating it had been corroded.

Demonic power.

Guan Jinyue's words echoed in his mind.

"The demon race has been making unusual moves recently, and Huaqing is the first stop."

He raised his head and looked into the depths. Sure enough, there were other beings in this D-level secret realm.

At that moment, a terrible howl tore through the deathly silence of the valley.

Whoosh! Bang!

In the distance, a dazzling red firework bursts in the sky, forming a distress signal.

The signal flare came from a direction deeper in the valley.

An Changqing's expression, which had just eased, tensed up again.

"They're not one of ours." His voice was tense. "But the academy only arranged for our class to enter the secret realm."