Chapter 570 Deeper Than the Abyss

Xia Nan felt a deep reluctance to see the secret realm come to an end.

After all, he had never experienced a place where he could earn precious combat technique proficiency simply through slaughter.

If the secret realm could stay open indefinitely, he had the patience to hold out until he maxed out every combat technique at his disposal—even if it meant grinding away inside for hundreds of days, or even years.

The sudden changes in the secret realm a few days prior had granted everyone the ability to perceive the locations of the other participants. At the same time, the life energy left behind by each adventurer upon death had massively increased.

At first, Xia Nan welcomed the change; under these conditions, he could earn even more combat technique proficiency.

But as the number of surviving adventurers continued to dwindle, he gradually realized the downside.

Before the shift, he had no idea what "Algae Scale" Dodd's situation was, but his own team had the sparrow, Sarissa, who could sense the locations of nearby adventurers.

This had given Xia Nan an information advantage the other participants lacked.

Now, the mutation in the secret realm had wiped that advantage out.

It also meant the adventurers he was supposed to track down and personally send out of the secret realm were now actively slaughtering each other.

This drastically reduced Xia Nan's proficiency gains.

Of course, this meat-grinder mechanism allowed many participants who had only undergone the First Evolution to ascend to higher life tiers through combat, meaning they left behind far more life energy when they died.

However, the vast majority of the time, the life energy an adventurer absorbed was not retained at a hundred percent upon their death.

For example, if an adventurer killed three participants and reached the Second Evolution, the life energy they left behind upon death might only equal the combined total of two adventurers. There was a clear loss in the transfer.

Because of this, even though Xia Nan had been hunting diligently over the past few days, his ultimate combat technique proficiency gains still fell just short of a qualitative upgrade.

And now, outside of their own four-person squad, only two surviving participants remained in his perception across the entire secret realm.

It was easy to guess that one of those two was highly likely the architect of the ritual—"Algae Scale" Dodd.

As for the other one—

A strange expression surfaced on Xia Nan's face.

Back in the real world, through the perspective of his human body floating above the sea.

On the coast, the Windforged and the Raging Tide Warband had been locked in a standoff before being pulled into the secret realm. The handful of elite adventurers originally suspended in mid-air, wrapped in blue light, had all lost their glow and dropped back to the ground.

Only one lone figure, positioned slightly away from the crowd, remained suspended in mid-air in a glowing blue aura.

The halfling, Alton.

Well—that was to be expected.

He was, after all, favored by the Goddess of Luck. It made perfect sense that he had survived in the secret realm this long.

Xia Nan had no idea how the little guy had weathered the onslaught of the other adventurers during this period.

But after confirming that the halfling was still alive, the situation was now crystal clear.

Aside from his own team, the two remaining points of light in his perception were "Algae Scale" Dodd and the halfling, Alton.

Xia Nan's side held an absolute numerical advantage.

Yet he did not relax in the slightest; instead, his vigilance only grew.

Having undergone the Fifth Evolution and utilized this period to absorb a considerable amount of life energy, his physical constitution had been greatly enhanced.

Xia Nan knew the exact strength of this wolf body better than anyone.

And precisely because of this, when it came to the architect of the ritual—who naturally possessed an information advantage and other unknown conveniences, who had likely long since reached the Fifth Evolution, and who had massively boosted his overall combat power by harvesting a huge number of other adventurers—exactly how strong "Algae Scale" was now...

...was something Xia Nan simply could not gauge.

Even with his advantage in combat techniques and his ability to use an explosive trump card like [Ember Echoes], he still might not be a match for Dodd.

In fact, the three teammates behind him, led by Lorraine, had already come to a decision: if "Algae Scale" proved too powerful, Xia Nan was not to hesitate. He was to send all three of them out of the secret realm and use the life energy they left behind to strengthen himself.

Of course, that was an absolute last resort.

Right now, their plan was to track down the surviving halfling, Alton, pool everyone's strength, and only then launch their decisive battle against Dodd.

However, as if sensing their plan, the two points of light in his perception—originally separated by a considerable distance—were rapidly closing the gap, with one actively driving toward the other.

There was not enough information to tell which light point belonged to whom, but obviously, Alton was about to collide with "Algae Scale" Dodd.

As teammates, there was no way Xia Nan and the others could just sit back and watch.

After a brief discussion, the group of four made the decision to move out and support him.

If they were lucky, Alton would hold out until they arrived, allowing them to initiate the decisive battle against "Algae Scale" Dodd right then and there.

But restricted by their starting positions, even with Xia Nan and his team moving as quickly as possible, they could only watch helplessly through their perception as the two points of light representing "Algae Scale" Dodd and Alton merged.

Four slender limbs pumped so fast they blurred into shadows, his pitch-black mane whipping wildly in the rushing wind of his high-speed sprint.

Xia Nan pushed this wolf body to its absolute maximum speed.

At the same time, he kept a fraction of his attention focused on the real world, constantly monitoring the halfling's body as it floated in mid-air on the coast, enveloped in blue light.

The total area of the secret realm had already been drastically reduced by its shrinking boundaries.

Traveling at top speed from his previous position near the edge, it did not take Xia Nan long to reach the destination shown in his perception.

Following the merger of the first two points of light, a third pressed right up against them.

His wolf paws skidded to a gentle halt, and his sharp lupine eyes swept across the area.

Unexpectedly, the intense battle he had imagined between two highly evolved monsters was nowhere to be seen.

Instead, he found a patch of forest floor in complete disarray.

Snapped branches and crushed grass stems were everywhere, and yellow sand from nowhere was scattered across the dirt and meadow.

It looked like the aftermath of a massive battle, but in reality, there were no actual signs of monsters fighting in this clearing.

And from his real-world human perspective, Alton's body was still floating in the air.

'What's going on?'

Xia Nan frowned slightly. The two points of light in his perception had clearly merged a while ago, meaning they had definitely encountered each other. How could the scene look as if nothing had happened?

'Could there be some mechanism to the ritual that I haven't discovered yet?'

He pondered this while searching the battlefield for clues.

It was not long before Lorraine and the others arrived at the scene as well.

After listening to Xia Nan's explanation, the members of the Blade of Vengeance Squad fell into deep thought.

Sasha suggested that the monster Alton possessed might have spatial abilities. Perhaps it was hiding in the dimensional interlayer, and when "Algae Scale" Dodd approached, it pulled him in to imprison and restrict him.

That would explain why they could not see either of them, even though the points of light representing their own group had already merged with the two targets in their perception.

Hmm—considering the massive variety of monster branches that had appeared on his Attribute Panel during evolution, it was not entirely impossible.

However, Xia Nan felt the truth probably was not that complicated.

Then, after carefully inspecting the surrounding environment, Lorraine—the captain of the Blade of Vengeance Squad and the most experienced among them—offered her own theory.

The Spined Devil she possessed spread its wings and circled the sky above the clearing a few times to confirm there was nothing there.

Only then did it drop back down, stomping its feet on the yellow sand scattered across the ground.

"I think they might be right below us."

"You mean—" Sasha chimed in from the side, "Alton and Dodd are underground?"

Lorraine gave a slight nod.

"If that's the case, it makes perfect sense why their points of light merged without leaving any signs of a battle here."

Combining his own intuition with the sensory information from the surrounding environment, Xia Nan felt Lorraine's theory was much closer to the truth.

The only problem was that even if Alton and Dodd really were right below them, not a single one of the four—Xia Nan included—had the ability to dig quickly or maneuver underground.

They wanted to support Alton, but they had no idea if or when the two combatants would surface.

After a brief discussion, the group decided to keep a close eye on the shifting points of light in their perception while searching the surrounding area for any tunnels or caves leading underground.

Dodd, of course, had no idea what Xia Nan and the others were doing.

At the time, he had been digging down with all his might, ecstatic that he was about to catch the lone adventurer hiding deep underground.

When he dug straight through into the Dragon Lair, he was utterly terrified by the Dragon Might. Forced to burn his trump card, he fled back toward the surface with everything he had.

It was not until he clawed his way back to the surface and confirmed the red dragon was not pursuing him that he finally breathed a sigh of relief and checked the locations of the remaining adventurers in the secret realm.

In Dodd's eyes, Xia Nan's little group had to be slightly stronger than he had originally assumed; otherwise, they could not have survived the final bloodbath over the last two days after the perception restriction was lifted.

But even thinking highly of them, he still did not believe for a second that a single one of those four adventurers had reached a higher evolution stage than he had.

He had already achieved his Fourth Evolution and was standing right on the threshold of his Fifth. Compared to that, Dodd figured the strongest member of this remaining little group could be at the Third Evolution at best.

After all, relying on numbers meant they had to split their harvest among the team.

Even if they funneled most of the resources to one person, they could not possibly invest every single drop into them.

—

Otherwise, it would just be one highly evolved adventurer lugging around three completely useless burdens, entirely defeating the purpose of a "team" and their numerical advantage.

This was his chance!

Only one step away from his Fifth Evolution, Dodd desperately needed this qualitative upgrade to fight the adventurer currently hiding inside the Dragon Lair.

'I just need to kill one of them! Even if they haven't evolved at all, it'll be enough!'

'Just a little... I just need one last tiny bit of life energy—'

His six short, thick legs pumped furiously across the ground. They were no longer translucent; their luster had grown muddy, revealing the clear outlines of scales.

Trees blocking his path were snapped in half by his massive, rock-solid body, while bushes and shrubs were utterly pulverized, leaving a winding trail in his wake.

Although burning his trump card had cost him some stamina, Dodd's speed was still formidable.

In his perception, the distance between him and those four points of light was rapidly shrinking.

What he failed to notice, however, was that in the face of his aggressive, predatory charge, his four "prey" did not attempt to flee. They simply stood their ground, almost as if they were waiting for him.

Of course, even if Dodd had noticed, his current predicament meant he had no other options anyway.

A few minutes flew by in a flash.

Very soon, "Algae Scale" Dodd laid eyes on the four-person group.

A Spined Devil, a black bear, and—a sparrow?

The instant he saw them, Dodd's scale-covered, earthy-yellow face shifted.

A look of genuine ecstasy burst across his features!

Just as he thought!

Exactly as he had predicted, this four-person squad had survived to the very end purely by relying on numbers. Even the mutant Spined Devil, which looked like their heaviest hitter, was barely at the Second Evolution at best.

They wanted to take a shortcut by relying on teamwork? Then they deserved to become his stepping stones!

But regardless, he was still a highly experienced veteran adventurer. Even with his Fifth Evolution and qualitative upgrade to the "Transcendent Tier" dangling right in front of him...

...a tiny sliver of doubt, born from an adventurer's instinct, quietly crept into the depths of Dodd's mind amidst his ecstasy.

If the strongest member of this squad really was just a mutant Spined Devil with no more than two evolutions, how exactly had they survived the onslaught of the other adventurers during the secret realm's final stage over the last two days?

Was it purely due to luck?

Or perhaps—

Wait a minute!

A four-person squad?

The ecstasy in his heart slammed to a halt, and Dodd's expression instantly froze.

His eyes subconsciously swept across the clearing once more.

A Spined Devil, a black bear, a sparrow—

Where was the fourth one?

Where was the last one?

He had absolute confidence in his current strength; the "Transcendent Tier" felt like it was already securely in his grasp.

Yet, for some inexplicable reason, a bone-deep chill seeped out of the air, slipping through the gaps in his scales and washing over his entire body.

His massive lizard body abruptly petrified where it stood.

This was not the instinctual suppression of a higher-tier predator like the Dragon Might. This was something he had never felt before—a chilling aura forged from pure killing intent that had silently enveloped him.

Like a rusted machine, Dodd slowly turned his head to look to his side. His movements were incredibly stiff and awkward, as if he had just been thrust into a completely foreign body.

What met his eyes was a pitch-black darkness, more profound than the abyss itself.