Goblin Dependency

Xia Nan was all too familiar with the wounds on the coyotes before him.

Dark purple bruises formed from blunt force trauma on their skin and muscles, with small puncture wounds possibly made by rusty nails or similar sharp objects.

Some appeared to be slash wounds caused by sharp human weapons. A closer look revealed that the edges of these wounds were jagged, as if cut by a saw, with flayed flesh exposing greyish-yellow rust spots.

Poorly made yet inexplicably sturdy wooden sticks, rusty knives and swords scavenged from adventurers’ corpses...

Along with the filthy, putrid, and sickening stench that surrounded the coyotes, a smell Xia Nan found strangely intoxicating and familiar.

By now, he knew exactly what the hunting coyotes had encountered.

Goblins!

It was goblins!

His beast eyes narrowed, his heartbeat suddenly quickened, his chest heaved along with his rapid breaths.

The wolf tail behind him wagged furiously, and Xia Nan felt an indescribable urgency rise within him.

The presence of goblins was a complete burden and danger to all intelligent beings living in this world, as well as to the ordinary beasts that roamed the wild; they were a total menace.

If such a goblin group were living around the wolf pack, it would eventually threaten the coyotes’ safety.

To repay the coyotes for their support during this time, Xia Nan decided to personally help eliminate them.

Well... also to satisfy some of his own interests and preferences.

To be honest, he hadn’t encountered goblins for a long time since he left Suo Yu Bay.

Although he had developed a hobby of fishing during this time, the meager catches and unpredictable luck couldn’t compare to the satisfaction of dealing with goblins.

Now that he had encountered this opportunity in the Secret Realm, Xia Nan wasn’t going to let it go to waste.

Regardless, he had to go over and take a look.

Even if it was just a few goblins to kill randomly, it would still greatly lighten his mood.

Of course, despite the fluctuations in his emotions, Xia Nan remained rational.

He could still use Battle Skills and specialties, but now in this wolf body, he didn’t possess the strength of a human body, and he couldn’t use any Equipment except for the Dream Weaving Corridor.

He certainly couldn’t enter the goblin nest as openly as in the real world in his current state.

He needed to first observe the scale and structure of the Goblin Tribe. If there were any Elite Individuals like Earth Goblins or Bear Goblins, it would be wise to avoid them for now and return when he was stronger.

With this in mind, Xia Nan left the "Vine Horned Sheep" he had hunted for the wolf pack to sustain them during their time of rest.

As for himself, he followed the familiar scent lingering in the air, wagging his tail, and headed towards the shrubs where the coyotes had come from.

Meanwhile, not far away, a small brown-feathered sparrow the size of a palm stood quietly atop a tree branch.

Unlike the ignorance and purity of ordinary beasts, its bird eyes gleamed with intelligence, reflecting the Black Wolf disappearing into the forest below.

It tilted its head.

"Crackle."

A faint wing-flapping sound broke the air.

...

...

Xia Nan’s search process was very smooth.

It had been so long since he heard goblins’ beautiful screams full of fear and panic before they died, so long since he felt the delightful sensation of a blade cutting through their frail bodies.

Perhaps because of this, thanks to the acute scent of the Wolf, the goblin stench in the air seemed to form a visible line that guided him towards his destination.

The bloodline of the Temple Night Wolf subspecies in the Night Fog Forest allowed his agile body to leap and dart easily between the treetops.

Occasionally avoiding snakes dangling from branches, he snatched a few bird nests along the way as snacks for the journey.

After advancing for about half an hour deep into the forest, the goblin scent in the air reached an incredibly dense degree.

As if he saw something, Xia Nan’s wolf paws suddenly paused.

His soft pads trod on a ground carpeted with fallen leaves, his shadowy, nimble body silently descended from above.

Before him, embedded in the center of an oak tree crudely carved with inferior weapons, was a roughly made wooden board.

At its center, a familiar sigil was vividly painted in blood:

—A shield split down the middle, with the left half depicting a Dwarf’s Iron Hammer, and the right half portraying a barbarian’s giant axe.

"Furious Tide Battle Gang?"

Xia Nan, who had a good memory, recognized the insignia of this adventurer team.

However, seeing the Furious Tide Battle Gang’s insignia appear in this way within the current scene was bound to make him overthink.

"So... could it be that a member of the Furious Tide Battle Gang, after being drawn into the Secret Realm, became possessed as a goblin?"

Xia Nan speculated.

In his heart, he didn’t agree with the other’s behavior of revealing their identity.

Within the Secret Realm, team members were scattered all over the place.

He understood that the other’s intention was to quickly gather known teammates using a recognizable insignia to gain a collective advantage in this world.