The developers still haven't forgiven the players.

Chapter 135 The Hou Clan Unites

A small villa on the second floor.

Jiang Chen stood silently behind the window, observing the scene in the open space.

He made no attempt to stop it.

He was pleased with what Dog Brother had done.

To be precise, the fact that some players were turned into tools by Dog Brother was itself the result of Jiang Chen's deliberate manipulation behind the scenes.

After all, as the number of players increases, there are simply not enough "wild monsters" near the tribe to go around.

Only through active cultivation can a player's blood energy gain be stable.

However, players are a group that won't act without a profit motive.

Rather than spending the whole day cultivating, players would rather go exploring in the mountains and forests, even if they come up empty-handed, they still find it more interesting than burying themselves in cultivation.

At times like this, having someone like Brother Dog who spends money like crazy can actually make some players obediently focus on building up their skills.

As for who will absorb the Blood Qi Pills that are refined, Jiang Chen doesn't care, since they will all end up on him anyway.

Unbeknownst to him, a large number of experience packs were flowing into the wilderness at that moment.

Even without the Blood Qi Pill, he wouldn't have to worry about players having nothing to do and wasting their time.

Deep in the dense forest, the light was fragmented by the layers of tree canopy, leaving only dappled shadows flickering on the damp ground.

The air was filled with a sweet, fishy smell, a mixture of rotting leaves and some unknown fungus; each breath felt like swallowing a damp, cold wad of cotton.

The Cloud Roar Centurion lay prone beneath a giant fern, his pupils slightly contracted as he warily scanned his surroundings.

The nearly one hundred Roar Clan warriors behind him, like a silent shadow, pressed close to the ground, even deliberately suppressing their breathing to a minimum.

After they returned to the abandoned stone village and discovered that the centurion and his comrades who had stayed behind had been slaughtered, they hurriedly left.

During this time, Yunhou and his men lived in constant fear, hiding and fleeing in the mountains and forests.

There was nothing they could do; their forces were simply too few.

In order to prolong his life, he dared not order his men to attack and kill even a hunting party from a human tribe.

-

Once they attract the attention of humans, any tribe has enough power to annihilate them.

"Hiss~"

A very faint inhalation came from the middle of the line.

Yunhou's ears twitched, instantly pinpointing the source of the sound.

It was a young Roaring Clan warrior; his left leg had been slashed open with a deep gash that exposed bone.

Dark red blood slowly seeped out from the wound, dripping onto the damp humus with a soft "tap".

It appears that the injury was sustained unintentionally while traveling in the mountains and forests.

In this treacherous forest, the smell of blood is the most deadly lure.

He immediately gave a hand signal, and two experienced Roaring Clan veterans silently slid past.

They didn't speak, but skillfully applied a bitter-smelling herb to the wound to stop the bleeding, and then tightly bandaged it with tough bark fibers.

The young soldier was pale, his forehead covered in a fine layer of cold sweat, but he gritted his teeth and didn't utter a single groan.

He knew that his mistake could put the entire 100-man team in danger.

"Keep moving forward," Yunhou silently conveyed the command.

The group began to move again, struggling to traverse the heart of the dense forest.

The trees here are incredibly tall, with thick root systems that intertwine like the skeleton of a dragon. Every step requires careful avoidance of dead branches that might make a sound or trigger some kind of deadly plant.

From time to time, unknown poisonous insects would slip down from between the leaves, making a "rustling" sound.

Every unusual movement would instantly tense the muscles of all the soldiers, their hands gripping the bone knives at their waists, ready to respond to any sudden attack.

"Cloud Roar Centurion, how much longer are we going to hide like this?" a Roar Clan squad leader couldn't help but ask in a low voice.

Now that they have come to their ancestral land, they are not afraid of death, but these Roaring Clan warriors do not want to die meaninglessly like this.

Over this period of time, the number of non-combat casualties alone has reached nearly ten.

Most importantly, they see no hope at all.

I don't know if there will be reinforcements, or when the patrolling humans will discover us and then wipe us out by the human warriors who will come after hearing the news.

In this seemingly endless green maze, time seems to lose its meaning.

Most of the Roaring Clan warriors in the group probably thought that if they had known it would turn out like this, they would have preferred to have died alongside the centurion in front of the abandoned stone village.

After an unknown amount of time, a faint sound, different from the sound of the wind, came from the left.

Yunhou suddenly stopped and raised his right fist.

The entire group froze instantly, as if they had become one with the surrounding forest.

Yunhou's pupils shrank to a thin line.

He smelled it; a faint, yet incredibly familiar, fishy odor carried on the wind.

That's the taste of our own kind!

"The rest of you, stay put and wait for orders."

Yunhou's tone was filled with barely concealed elation as he looked at the Hou clan leader beside him: "Come with me."

The two walked one after the other through layers of dead trees and wildly growing thorns. Their gaze passed through a hazy miasma, and the camp hidden deep in the wilderness finally revealed its menacing outline.

This is a temporary military outpost filled with a somber atmosphere.

The campsite was strategically located in a narrow valley nestled between two mountains, surrounded by ancient trees whose massive canopies acted as a natural dome, filtering the midday sun into a bleak gray-green.

The air was filled with the smell of rotting leaves and rust, a unique odor of the lack of sunlight, which, when mixed together, could largely mask the tribe's distinctive body odor.

A defensive wall made of sharpened giant logs stood in a semi-circle, firmly guarding the entrance to the valley, with the top of each log sharpened to a point.

Two simple watchtowers stand atop thick tree trunks, their bodies bound together with rough vines and bark, sufficient for short-term use.

"Who goes there?"

The Howling Clan warriors on the watchtower also smelled the scent of their own kind; otherwise, they wouldn't have questioned them, but would have sounded the alarm.

In fact, it is precisely because of this unique "method of communication" among members of the same clan that these scattered Hou tribes were able to gradually come together.

The Roar Clan warriors, like Yunhou, formed a group in this way.

Without hesitation, Yunhou burst out from the thorns where he was hiding.

"The vanguard, the centurions roar like clouds!"

Hearing the commotion in front of the camp, a thousand-man commander of the Roaring Clan, his body brimming with bloodlust, strode out of his tent.

After fighting his way out of Shanyun City, he only had a few hundred Roar Clan warriors left under his command. He really wanted to find more clansmen and reorganize them into his own battle division.

"How many soldiers do you have left? Do you have any intelligence to share with me?"

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