Goblin Dependency

The target Xia Nan was tracking was the antler deer in the bushes behind the tiger, whose body had been half-devoured.

A mass of radiant blue light was slowly floating above the corpse.

Although it wasn’t clear why this ritual participant, clearly possessing the memory and experience of a senior adventurer, still ended up dead beneath the beast’s claws.

Yet from the scene before him, Xia Nan could discern that after the beast embodying the adventurer died, its life energy didn’t dissipate or get absorbed by animals not possessed by participants, but instead remained in place.

This made him breathe a sigh of relief.

At least it’s all battle skill level, even if I might not find it myself, it’s better than having it dissipate right after death.

"Roar!"

The brown striped tiger ahead, gravely injured by a swipe of Xia Nan’s paw, of course couldn’t understand the thoughts of the wolf beast with unprecedentedly large size and snow-white fur before it.

From its perspective, after searching for prey for a long time and finally catching a seemingly injured one, before it could take a bite, it was clawed at the chest by a white wolf appearing out of nowhere.

Actually, according to the logic of normal high-level carnivorous animals, considering the richness of wild resources and the great risk of injury, Xia Nan wouldn’t even need to attack the other at all; staying at a distance and roaring to intimidate could possibly make the brown striped tiger weigh the pros and cons and relinquish the antler deer’s corpse.

But Xia Nan directly initiated the attack on the opponent and caused an injury severe enough to be called "grievous harm".

This directly provoked the tiger beast’s ferocity, leaving no chance to avoid combat.

"Bang!"

The huge claw landed on the ground, supporting the heavy body above, making a muffled sound upon impact.

The tiger beast roared as it leaped towards the white wolf, its body almost turning into a shadow, the outlines of its bulging muscles faintly visible beneath its striped fur.

In response, Xia Nan remained calm and unhurried.

One party was a top predator amongst ordinary beasts, the other was a genuine powerful demon with a challenge level as high as "3".

The tiger’s movement seemed swift but in Xia Nan’s eyes it was akin to slow motion.

His slender limbs lightly touched the soft meadow, gracefully avoiding the tiger beast’s assault.

At the same time, he opened his wolf mouth towards the opponent in mid-air.

Between serrated wolf teeth, a forest-cold aura rapidly coalesced at the throat, with magic particles fluctuating around.

"Boom hum!"

A beam of icy white light as thick as an adult’s forearm shot out from the wolf’s mouth, landing directly on the brown striped tiger’s body.

Crack—

The air resonated with a freezing sound that made one’s teeth ache, cold ice rapidly spreading out from the beam’s impact point.

The painful and angry roar abruptly ceased, and the tiger beast’s struggling movements instantly froze.

Only a lifelike tiger-shaped ice sculpture remained standing on the meadow.

——[Frozen Breath].

The Winter Wolf’s special ability.

Equipped with strong biting power and a demon-level digestive system, they face even the formidable prey that’s tough to capture, and can easily shatter the "ice sculpture" and swallow it whole after using the "Frozen Breath" to freeze it to death.

Xia Nan had tasted it several times these days.

Initially difficult to accept, but actually the taste turned out to be quite good.

Like an ice cream in summer, in the forest’s relatively warm environment, occasionally enjoying a few pieces of something cold like this felt very comfortable to the Winter Wolf’s body which should actually reside in polar regions.

Thinking to leave it as dinner, Xia Nan bypassed the frozen brown striped tiger and came to the antler deer’s corpse.

He didn’t hurry to absorb the life energy floating above.

Instead, he stood there until the sound of fluttering wings came from overhead.

Seeing the battle had ended, Sarisa, transformed into a sparrow, naturally flew down from her hiding spot in the treetop and landed on the ground.

"Are you sure you don’t want it?"

With his wolf mouth slightly open, Xia Nan confirmed with her.

These days, Sarisa had been indispensable in consistently tracking adventurers.

Without her help, even if Xia Nan wanted to use the ritual participants to improve his battle skill level, he’d be wandering around the map, relying entirely on luck to make discoveries.

Currently, they were in a cooperative relationship, Xia Nan wanting to leverage Sarisa’s special perception ability to search for surrounding adventurers, and Sarisa aiming to halt Dodd the "Algae Scale’s" ritual.

He provided the combat strength, she offered information.

The life energies of the previous two adventurers were absorbed by Xia Nan, and for the upcoming plan to proceed smoothly, it was proper to reciprocate, Xia Nan felt that offering the energy from the antler deer to her wouldn’t be a problem.

But clearly Sarisa held a different view.

Though unaware of the specifics of the ritual itself, as experienced senior adventurers, even based solely on the intelligence gathered earlier, they could roughly deduce Dodd’s purpose as "Algae Scale".

Nothing more than slaughtering adventurers pulled into the secret realm, continuously achieving life-tier evolution, eventually claiming victory.

Under such circumstances, if wanting to prevent the opponent from winning, clearly a similarly evolved and powerful individual is needed.

Therefore, Sarisa thought it would be better to consolidate the energy on Xia Nan.

In her current sparrow form, small-bodied and easily hidden, she had flight ability, and was already very satisfied, not needing evolutionary improvement.

As for why she banked on Xia Nan, part of it was due to their interactions on the Vengeance Blade Blade, and another aspect was his peculiar ability to freely use battle skills even in the secret realm.

Seeing Sarisa state her stance, Xia Nan didn’t hesitate further, taking two steps forward with his wolf legs.

Whoosh—

As if an invisible magnetic force existed, the blue light cluster floating mid-air quickly gathered toward his direction and seeped into his body through skin pores.

Familiar semi-transparent characters flashed before his eyes.

"Skill Level +1"

"[Gravity Control]Level 1 (54/100) → [Gravity Control]Level 1 (55/100)"

"Skill Level +1"

"[Embers Resonance]Level 2 (37/100) → [Embers Resonance]Level 2 (38/100)"

"Skill Level +4"

"[Heavy Tide]Level 3 (31/100) → [Heavy Tide]Level 3 (35/100)"

"..."

He could feel the warmth circulating along a fixed path within, the wolf body that had rapidly developed in mere days swelling another tier, gradually surpassing the expected size of the Winter Wolf.

However, perhaps because the adventurers he’d tracked down recently, including the antler deer now, hadn’t undergone even one evolution, the life energy they provided was relatively limited.

Even with three accumulations, the life energy within him was still slightly shy of reaching the third evolution.

Seeing the upgrade progress bar reach ninety-nine percent, Xia Nan wasn’t about to stop there.

Seeing it wasn’t too late in the day, he glanced at Sarisa and said:

"Just about another adventurer will meet the third evolution condition."

"Is there a suitable target near us?"

Upon hearing this, Sarisa, transformed into a sparrow, closed her eyes and began to feel carefully.

Unlike Dodd’s "Algae Scale" with remote map views, his daughter could only perceive the nearest adventurer.

Xia Nan had relied precisely on her guidance to move from the dense original forest to the wooded area here.

Oddly, unlike the previous few tracking attempts, Sarisa was unusually slow in targeting, and the small sparrow body stiffened on the spot, appearing troubled.

Could it be that the distance is relatively far?

Xia Nan mused to himself.

But before he could think further, a loud hum suddenly resonated from afar in the sky.

Looking instinctively in that direction.

He saw a glowing blue light, more radiant than any seen before, slowly descending from high in the southeastern sky.

"A hundred adventurers pulled into the secret realm", the "ritual mechanism of mutual slaughter and evolution," the "gradually shrinking map boundaries".

Even now, all adventurers in this mountain and forest area could see the glowing blue light cluster slowly descending from the sky...

In Xia Nan’s ice-blue wolf eyes, a hint of strange sparkle flashed.

"This is..."

"Airdrop?"

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