Chapter 567 The Impact of Change and a Disdainful Sneer

Dodd's final resort had a massive impact on the entire Secret Realm.

Ever since time and space froze across Stodd Island and the surrounding waters, the elite adventurers had spent dozens of days inside this accelerated ritual.

A large portion of them had either died in various accidents within the Secret Realm or been killed by other participants who then absorbed their life energy.

As the ritual entered its final stage, the number of adventurers remaining in the Secret Realm had dropped below half.

Among them were some with decent luck—the type who hadn't seen a single battle.

They hadn't even figured out the ritual's mechanism of killing for evolution, merely surviving in the Secret Realm on their experience as veteran adventurers.

The others, however, had all undergone at least the First Evolution, and some—thanks to boons like airdrops—had reached species levels close to the Third Evolution.

Having experienced killing and absorbing life energy, they had a rough idea of "Algae Scale" Dodd's goal. Taking the initiative, they hunted other adventurers to strengthen themselves while exploring the map.

However, they were limited by their lack of information. They couldn't control the global map like Dodd, nor could they sense nearby adventurers like Sarissa.

Therefore, even though the map had shrunk considerably, their evolutionary progress remained limited.

—Until now.

When Dodd activated his backup plan, he granted all adventurers currently in the Secret Realm the ability to sense the locations of other participants.

The battlefield, already intensifying as the map shrank, instantly accelerated into an almost chaotic, out-of-control state.

None of the adventurers pulled into the Secret Realm were fools. They might have been confused at first, but they quickly figured out what the moving dots of light suddenly appearing in their minds represented.

Those surviving on pure luck might have tried to maintain their cautious style, but they couldn't fend off the active tracking and attacks of participants who had tasted blood and craved life energy to grow stronger.

Mixed with the thick stench of blood, and set against pale red map borders that shrank at a visible rate, the aura of death permeated the Secret Realm.

Of course, for Xia Nan, this was also a good thing.

Although he had lost the advantage of Sarissa's perception, his current evolutionary tier had long since reached a level sufficient to crush his competition.

He didn't even need the human combat techniques brought into the Secret Realm by his Attribute Panel. The base physical stats of his wolf body alone were enough to tear apart ordinary adventurers who had only undergone one or two evolutions.

The only pity was that their group of four was likely the largest team in the entire Secret Realm, meaning no adventurer dared to approach them; Xia Nan had to go out and hunt them down himself.

However, with his movement speed, anyone he targeted had little chance of escaping anyway.

"Squelch."

From within his Wolf's Maw, an ink-black longsword formed of mist energy sliced a charging rhinoceros adventurer cleanly in half.

Though the blade's outline seemed blurry, its sharpness rivaled high-quality enchanted equipment. The rhino's thick, tough skin couldn't block it in the slightest, unable to slow the weapon for even half a second. Wherever the blade passed, skin, flesh, and even bone and sinew were cleanly cleaved apart.

Accompanied by a wolf's howl, the arc of sword light flashed and vanished in the air.

The massive, fierce black wolf brushed past the rhinoceros.

As the Wolf's Maw opened and closed, the ink-black longsword faded into mist and dissipated.

The rhinoceros maintained its charging posture, but the short, thick legs pumping beneath it grew increasingly slow.

A faint line of blood started from its horn and extended backward, trailing along its shoulder, chest, abdomen, hind legs, and short tail—

"Thud!"

Carried by its own momentum, the heavy, bulky body crashed flat onto the ground.

With the suddenly widening bloodline acting as a boundary, scarlet blood sprayed wildly as its upper half—including half its horn, the back of its head, its bulging spine, and its hind thigh along with half its tail—slid right off the struggling, twitching corpse.

Hum—

A glowing blue orb symbolizing life energy floated leisurely above the corpse.

The pitch-black wolf beast pacing over merely raised its head slightly, and the glowing blue light poured into its body as if drawn by an invisible guide.

Having already reached the cap of the Fifth Evolution, Xia Nan no longer needed to stockpile energy to ascend his life tier. All the light he absorbed turned into the purest energy supply, scattering throughout his body to strengthen his physical attributes.

His pitch-black mane swayed without wind, akin to the biting aura that had just wreathed his entire body. His muscles expanded and contracted, becoming firmer and more compact. His already massive frame expanded outward by half a size at a visible rate. He remained light on his feet, but his movements now carried an even greater sense of raw power.

[Proficiency +2]

[[Gravity Control] lv1 (77/100) → [Gravity Control] lv1 (79/100)]

[Proficiency +4]

[[Ember Echoes] lv2 (76/100) → [Ember Echoes] lv2 (80/100)]

[Proficiency +7]

[[Heavy Tide] lv4 (51/100) → [Heavy Tide] lv4 (58/100)]

[—]

Xia Nan's gaze swept over the translucent characters flashing in the empty air before him, and he paused in surprise.

This rhino adventurer must have already completed the First Evolution before encountering him; its combat power had been decent.

However, the proficiency it provided was noticeably higher than that of ordinary participants.

Recalling the recent changes, he already had a guess.

Now, coupled with his gains from the past few days, the upgrade progress of his three combat techniques had jumped up another notch.

He sighed inwardly. 'If only I had this kind of efficiency in the real world outside the Secret Realm.'

There were times when he even thought "Algae Scale" Dodd was being a bit stingy. If the pirate had just dragged a few hundred more adventurers in, Xia Nan might have been able to raise [Ember Echoes] to max level right here in the Secret Realm.

Rather than his current situation, where every time he helped "send an adventurer out," he had to carefully check the number of remaining participants and calculate his potential gains.

It was worth mentioning that, just like the Attribute Panel's introduction to the nearly conceptual legendary creature [Battle-Hardened · Blade Lord], after the Fifth Evolution, Xia Nan felt that using his various combat techniques had inexplicably become much smoother.

Even though a few of them had long been raised to the max level 5 of Mastery, he still felt their proficiency deepening, even if it wasn't reflected on the Attribute Panel.

More importantly, because he was fighting in a wolf's body in the Secret Realm, the inexplicable inspiration he had found for combining [Fang Hunt] and [Spinning Slash] seemed to have developed further thanks to the flesh of this legendary creature.

He was right on the verge of truly forming a prototype—

'Just a tiny bit left,' Xia Nan estimated his progress inwardly. 'I just hope I can glean something before the ritual completely ends.'

The powerful sound of flapping wings came from behind him.

Turning his head to look, he saw Lorraine, possessing the mutated Spined Devil, struggling slightly as she carried the black bear Sasha, wobbling her way through the trees toward his position.

Meanwhile, the sparrow Sarissa had arrived a step ahead of them, landing lightly on the branches of a shrub beside Xia Nan.

Because their group of four was too obvious in the mental perception, after confirming a hunting target, Xia Nan usually relied on his speed advantage to head out alone first, while his teammates kept an eye on the movements of surrounding adventurers as they hurried to catch up.

Just like now, more often than not, by the time they caught up to Xia Nan, he had already finished absorbing the life energy.

"The adventurers in the Secret Realm are dying faster and faster. I suspect Algae Scale Dodd is executing the final phase of his plan," Lorraine said with some concern, catching her breath as she dropped the black bear from her claws onto the ground.

Although she didn't know what had caused the remaining adventurers to gain the ability to sense others' locations, it was clearly a mechanism meant to accelerate the ritual.

As the one who had set up the Secret Realm, "Algae Scale" Dodd should have known the exact timeframe for this change long ago; he had likely prepared for it from the very beginning of his descent.

This was further proven after Xia Nan explained to them that the life energy he absorbed had noticeably increased.

This powerful pirate captain had likely completely finished his accumulation and was beginning to rapidly harvest the remaining adventurers in the Secret Realm.

[We can't waste any more time. We need to speed up our hunting even more!] Sarissa chirped, forcefully scratching the words into the dirt with her bird claws, harboring a deep dread of her fierce and powerful father.

They knew that sticking together made them extremely conspicuous in the perception net, and it was highly likely Dodd had already noticed them.

If Dodd was in the final stages of his harvest, putting themselves in his shoes, he would likely play it safe and leave a group with a numbers advantage like theirs for last, waiting until he had killed the rest of the isolated adventurers to boost his strength before dealing with them.

The group was taking advantage of this very point to buy time for Xia Nan's growth.

Ever since they descended into the Secret Realm and learned of the ritual's mechanics, the existence of "Algae Scale" Dodd had been like a Sword of Damocles constantly hanging over their heads.

No one knew the ritual conductor's progress, nor did anyone know exactly what he was doing right now.

But from Xia Nan's perspective, if he were the one who had set up the ritual, he felt his own growth wouldn't be any worse than his current self at the Fifth Evolution.

And he never minded considering problems from the worst-case scenario.

Just as Sarissa worried, in order to stop Dodd's ritual and harvest as much proficiency as possible, he had to be faster and push even harder!

"For the next one, let's pick this guy to the southeast. He's a bit closer," Xia Nan planned with his teammates, searching for the locations of nearby participants within his mental perception before he had even fully digested the rhino adventurer's life energy.

Dodd finally completed his Fourth Evolution since descending into the Secret Realm!

"Roar!!!" The high-pitched howl transformed into an invisible slipstream that surged outward, forming ripples across the grass.

Not far away, a gray-furred rat larger than an adult human lay motionless in a pool of blood.

The life energy originally floating above its corpse had been completely absorbed.

And the culprit behind the gray rat adventurer's death—an earthen-yellow lizard with a translucent body—had finally welcomed his long-awaited Fourth Evolution.

Without the Golden Finger of an Attribute Panel, Dodd, who had to randomly select his evolutionary path, was clearly drifting further and further from his envisioned goal of a giant dragon.

The already robust lizard body swelled and grew continuously like a balloon. Pustules bulged on both sides of his abdomen, eventually bursting with pus to reveal a tender new pair of claws.

He had no dragon-like membranous wings on his back; instead, his scaly skin became even tougher, yet increasingly transparent.

Like some special creature that had dwelt in a lightless environment for ages, the already translucent scales now turned as crystal-clear as glazed glass, to the point that his writhing internal organs were visible within.

An earthen-yellow horn pierced through his forehead—clearly a crucial spellcasting organ for this bizarre creature. Dense magic particles swirled around it, staining the air with a halo of earthy yellow.

Feeling the majestic power surging within his body, along with a far more meticulous control over elemental energy than before, Dodd felt his confidence multiply, growing ever prouder of his own wisdom.

With the ritual's borders shrunk to this extent, his original advantage of perceiving locations had already diminished. Trading it for a life energy bonus allowed him to greatly expand his advantage.

If he had previously only been slightly in the lead, now that he had reached the Fourth Evolution and undergone a qualitative change in overall strength, he unquestionably stood at the very pinnacle of the adventurer pyramid within the entire Secret Realm.

Now, what Dodd needed to do next was to leverage his strength advantage as much as possible, hunt down the adventurers on the map one by one, harvest their life energy, and widen the power gap between them to an insurmountable degree.

When that time came, he would become the final victor of the Secret Realm and complete his advancement ritual.

Using the [Scale Shifter] class as his starting point, he would become a Transcendent Tier existence in the truest sense.

The thought of realizing this beautiful, bright vision in the near future sent ripples of excitement surging through Algae Scale Dodd's heart.

"As long as I can complete the ritual—as long as I can advance to the Transcendent Tier—"

Then everything he had sacrificed so far—time, energy, wealth, and even favors—would all be worth it!

A flash of resolve crossed Dodd's slit lizard pupils after his moment of longing.

Concentrating his will, he searched for his next target within his perception.

That small group of four adventurers he had noticed earlier had not suffered any casualties.

As his mind swept over them, Dodd hesitated briefly, but ultimately decided not to choose them as his target.

After all, they had the numbers advantage, and he had only just completed his Fourth Evolution, requiring some time to adapt to his new body.

Rushing into a siege might make the battle somewhat difficult, and getting injured at this critical juncture, when he needed rapid growth, was absolutely unacceptable to him.

"Heh, I'll let you cling to life a little longer," Dodd sneered coldly, shifting his attention to select a different target. He held nothing but disdain for adventurers who chose to group up in a Secret Realm that thrived on a kill-to-evolve mechanism.