I started with a portal, then turned around and handed it over to the nation.

Lin Mo led Raine back to the tent.

Unzip the tent and you'll find two military-style air mattresses placed side by side, taking up most of the space.

Raine curiously bent down and crawled inside, kneeling on the air mattress. He pressed hard on the mattress with his rough fingers, and the peculiar elasticity startled him. When he turned to look at Lin Mo, his eyes were full of curiosity, as if he had never seen anything like it before.

Lin Mo smiled, without explaining the principle, and simply zipped up the tent to separate the inside from the outside.

The light inside the tent dimmed, with only moonlight filtering through the mesh curtain at the entrance.

Following Lin Mo's example, Raine lay down on another air mattress.

The mattress beneath him supported his body evenly, allowing his muscles, which had been tense all day, to relax. This felt much more comfortable than the hard, straw-covered beds in the village.

He turned his head to look at Lin Mo, whose eyes were already closed, and then glanced at the inner wall of the tent. Outside, he could hear the light footsteps of patrolling team members, and the chirping of unknown insects in the distance.

Everything felt so unreal.

There was no campfire, but there was boiling hot water and delicious food.

Despite having no wooden walls, it has a house that can stand on its own.

For the first time, this hunter, who had lived in the swamp for over thirty years, discovered how little he actually knew about this land.

After an unknown amount of time, just as Lin Mo was about to fall asleep.

"Something's up! Everyone on alert!"

A suppressed growl rang directly in Lin Mo's mind through his bone conduction headphones.

It was the voice of team leader Han Feng, calm and powerful.

Lin Mo's body tensed instantly, and he abruptly opened his eyes and sat up, all sleepiness gone.

Raine, who was standing nearby, was also startled awake. He grabbed the bone-bladed longsword beside him and went into a state of alert.

"What's wrong?" Renn asked in a low voice in the local dialect, his eyes fixed on the tent entrance.

Outside the tents, a commotion broke out in the quiet camp. First came the rustling of tactical vests, then the soft clicking of weapons being removed, and the muffled thud of boots on the muddy ground.

The entire team was instantly activated, operating with the efficiency of a machine, without the slightest chaos.

Before Lin Mo could explain, he unzipped the tent and crawled out with Raine.

In the center of the camp, Long Fei stood in front of the drone control equipment. Several team members surrounded him in a semi-circle, their guns pointing outwards, forming a defensive circle.

"What's wrong?" Lin Mo quickly ran to Long Fei and asked in a low voice.

Long Fei did not turn around; his gaze remained fixed on the split-screen device, and his voice was steady.

"Everyone, prepare for battle. Check your weapons, shut down all active light sources, and lie in wait at the five o'clock position!"

His orders were relayed to each team member via the internal channel.

The fifty-man team moved stealthily in the darkness, quickly taking their positions and disappearing into the shadows of trees and bushes, turning the entire camp into a place fraught with danger.

Long Fei then turned his head and turned a split-screen device toward Lin Mo.

"The drone detected a group of heat source signals, about twenty in total, and judging from their appearance, they should be goblins."

He pointed to a green screen with more than twenty constantly moving orange-red humanoid silhouettes.

"They're coming this way."

Raine also leaned over and frowned deeply when he saw the distorted humanoid heat sources on the screen.

He stared at the screen for a few seconds, then looked up to identify the five o'clock direction that Long Fei had mentioned. It was deep in the forest, not the road to the village.

He stretched out his finger and traced the path of the goblin group on the screen, then quickly explained to Lin Mo in his local dialect.

"That shouldn't be the case. There's no food or water on this road, and it's not the way to our village. Goblins are lazy; they never do pointless patrols."

He raised his head, his eyes sharp, revealing the judgment of a hunter.

"I suggest we observe first and not take action. Their target is probably not us, and if we engage in combat here, the smell of blood will attract something more troublesome from the swamp."

"Moreover, if one of them escapes, the high priest in their lair will know that a new enemy has appeared in this area, and it will be impossible to sneak up on them in the future."

"Most importantly, if they're attacked here, they'll definitely suspect our village, which is the closest one, is responsible. Then they'll retaliate fiercely against the village!"

Lin Mo's expression changed after hearing this, and he immediately translated Renn's words verbatim over the communication channel.

There was a moment of silence on the channel.

The captain of the Fierce Tiger Special Forces, a man with a fiery temper, couldn't help but speak up:

"Dragon Team, this is meat delivered to our doorstep, why not take it? Twenty goblins, we can take care of them in five minutes, I guarantee none of them will escape."

"I agree with Ryan's opinion."

Long Fei's voice interrupted him:

"Our primary target is the Tauren; let's avoid any unnecessary complications. Besides, the village is currently the only one that's friendly to us; we can't let them get into danger because of us."

"Wang Hao, increase the drone's altitude, switch to low-light mode, and continue monitoring. Everyone remain silent. Do not fire without my order."

"Yes!" came the unanimous response from the channel.

They knew very well what the consequences would be if they brought trouble to the village. If the only friendly natives in the world were gone, the subsequent mission would be several times more difficult.

On the screen, the goblin squad walked lazily forward for a short distance before stopping.

They seemed to be just going through the motions, listless, some spinning in place, some even sitting down to scratch themselves.

The goblin in the lead sniffed in the direction of the camp, seemingly finding nothing. He impatiently waved his broken weapon, then led his group, cursing and swearing, back the way they came.

If it weren't for the drones scouting overhead, the people in the camp would never have discovered this perfunctory patrol.

Only after watching the heat source signal on the screen move further and further away until it disappeared at the edge of the detection range did Long Fei speak.

"Alarm over."

The tense atmosphere then eased.

The team members quietly returned from their respective ambush points, checked their equipment, reset the alert level, and then went back to their tents to rest in batches. The whole process was quiet and orderly, as if nothing had happened.

As Raine watched all this, the soldiers showed no sign of relaxation, which deepened his opinion of them.

Soon, dawn arrived.

The sky was beginning to lighten, and the chill of the swamp dissipated somewhat.

The camp was dismantled immediately after dawn, equipment was quickly packed away, and all traces of activity were cleaned up. It was as if the camp from last night had never existed.

The group quickly ate their individual rations to replenish their energy.

Ryan walked to the front of the group again and glanced back at the well-equipped group of fifty people behind him.

Take a deep breath and point to the depths of the misty forest, where the faint growls of wild beasts can be heard.

"Let's go, cross this 'Wailing Woods,' and ahead lies the 'Bone Shattering Hill,' where the Tauren are entrenched."

Having said that, he no longer hesitated and took a step forward.

The group immediately followed, and with Raine, they once again ventured deep into the dense forest.