Goblin Dependency

Akken, who was possessing the fragile wild chicken, died on the spot, and exited the ritual in a state of weakness and severe injury.

Sasha, on the other hand, using the thick-skinned and rough body of the Black Bear, managed to barely survive by escaping to a hidden cave he had found while exploring the environment.

Perhaps due to distrust in his two teammates, Sefeng, who had killed the wild chicken Akken was possessing, immediately absorbed the life energy left by the barbarian on the spot.

Sasha witnessed the whole process and thereby learned the mechanisms of the Secret Realm.

Currently, even knowing the risks within the blue glowing object falling from the sky over the forest area ahead, Sasha had to cautiously approach it to seize the opportunity for advancement, in order to make up for the time previously wasted and close the gap with other adventurers.

"So Akken is out?"

Xia Nan furrowed his brows slightly and confirmed.

[Yes, fortunately, from the perspective when I was pulled into the Secret Realm, I happened to see him on the dock.] Sasha nodded, [In reality, he should only be slightly injured, not life-threatening.]

Unconsciously recalling the Elf Captain of the Wind Forger Team, Xia Nan pondered in his heart.

From Sasha’s description, it could be confirmed that.

The other party had already roughly grasped the slaughter mechanism of the Secret Realm, knowing that he could evolve by absorbing the remaining life energy of other adventurers, and had taken action, hunting down other participants in the ritual, even forming his own temporary team.

In terms of development level alone, he was already in the first echelon of all Secret Realm adventurers.

And according to the information provided by Sasha, he was most likely still in this forest area.

Under such circumstances, with the style of behavior demonstrated by Sefeng and his group, they absolutely wouldn’t miss the enormous glowing blue object dropping from the sky.

If he chose to go, there was a high chance of running into them.

Xia Nan was very confident in his current strength.

The special ability to freely use Battle Skills had already placed him in an invincible position in the Secret Realm, and with the Soros Blade Wolf body that had undergone the third evolution, he did not think that the combat strength level of the other party as described by Sasha could pose a threat to him.

But to be safe, there was never any harm in acting cautiously.

Carefully pondering the plan ahead, the three of them headed towards the direction where the glowing object was falling.

...

...

"Buzz..."

The enormous, dazzling blue light cluster descended like a blazing sun, with a "rustling" sound accompanying the swaying treetops, and the buzz of high-frequency energy echoing in the air.

Even wild animals lacking intelligence could feel the energy contained within it.

Of course, unlike the adventurers coming from all directions, these beasts, as if encountering a natural disaster, fled away from the area under the impulse of survival instincts.

"Boom!"

A thick palm, fan-like in its width, imbued with the immense strength to easily bend steel, slammed to the ground.

Blood spattered, flattening a rabbit that had been startled by the glowing object overhead and bolted by, into a flat pancake.

Five fingers covered in thick mane picked up the rabbit’s corpse from the meadow, popping it into its open, blood-reeking mouth like a snack.

This was a silver-backed gorilla, far more massive and burly than its kin.

Thick black fur covered its entire body but couldn’t hide the rocklike, explosively strong muscles beneath.

And strangely, not only was it larger than its kind by several sizes, but it also had a crude axe made from branches, vines, and sharpened stones tied to its waist, and makeshift armor crafted from sturdy wooden boards covered its vital areas.

The beast’s deep-set eyes glinted with an intelligence not characteristic of wild animals.

As an honorable, respectable, and supposedly superior pure blood Elf, possessing a dirty, smelly chimpanzee that eats lice off one another was nearly the most despairingly agonizing experience of Sefeng’s life.

Regaining mobility, and realizing the body he had inhabited upon arrival, he rushed to the nearby river and scrubbed himself clean, rudely rejecting any contact from his kind.

Like most of the adventurers in the Secret Realm at the time, vexed to the utmost, he begrudgingly adapted to the chimpanzee body and subconsciously stopped resisting its wild instincts, beginning to explore the environment around.

The turning point came when one of his explorations encountered a gray weasel adventurer, seemingly from the Furious Tide Battle Gang team.

Possibly a pre-planned strategy by the Furious Tide Battle Gang for situations like these, just like the goblin adventurer Xia Nan had encountered before, the Furious Tide Battle Gang member possessing the gray weasel also made a wooden sign related to their team emblem near the nest to summon teammates and prove identity.

Under normal circumstances, this was an excellent plan to quickly gather teammates.

But in the Secret Realm, it only hastened this adventurer’s demise.

Constrained by the Moon Tide Banquet and "Algae Scale" Dodd in the real world, the two enemy teams maintained restraint.

But in the Secret Realm, there were naturally no such considerations.

Sefeng didn’t hesitate to storm into the other’s nest, ripping the weasel the adventurer possessed in half.

By absorbing the remaining life energy, he evolved from an ordinary chimpanzee into a silver-backed gorilla and learned the ritual’s basic mechanics.

As the captain of a moderately famous professional adventurer team in the Southern Islands, Sefeng might have his flaws, but in terms of Heart, action, and decision, he far surpassed other peers.

After discovering the Secret Realm’s slaughter and evolution mechanism, he immediately devised an action plan to start harvesting the life energy of other adventurers, evolving rapidly using his evolutionary edge.

As for the outcome...

One could only say his luck was both good and bad.

The good aspect was, unlike others vainly searching and getting nothing on this vast map, Sefeng, in just over ten days, had indeed encountered two other adventurers.

The bad aspect was, both adventurers were members of his own Wind Forger Team and were among the few confirmed friendly teammates in the Secret Realm, so he couldn’t bring himself to kill them, nor could he absorb their life energy to evolve.

But if one had to say these two teammates could offer any help...

"Rustle..." Brownish fuzzy fur brushed along Sefeng’s broad back while a palm-sized squirrel clung desperately to his spine, emitting unclear "chirps."

The tiny claws gripping the gorilla’s mane left no doubt they could be flung off with just a slight jerk.

On the other side, near the left shoulder, was a grasshopper about the length of a human forearm.

The two long antennae swung back and forth over its head, making Sefeng uneasy, but he endured the disgust for the sake of traveling, allowing it to crawl over him.

A squirrel and a grasshopper.

These were all of Sefeng’s teammates found in these days.

He didn’t conceal his disdain for their weak combat abilities.

Yet he had no intention of helping them evolve at least once.

Like three days ago, with the adventurer from the Sword of Vengeance who possessed a wild chicken.

Sefeng could have let the life energy be absorbed by one of his nearby teammates to help them evolve once.

But obviously, he wasn’t that selfless.

"Chirp chirp!"

The squirrel’s sharp cries by his ear especially annoyed him.

Although he completely couldn’t understand what it was yelling about, Sefeng could roughly guess its meaning.

It was merely needing to hide and wait for other adventurers to appear upon reaching the destination.

Indeed, Sefeng’s current plan was almost the same as the recently turned battle skill practice fodder, the beetle Flynn’s.

Using this conspicuous life energy falling from the sky as bait to attract nearby adventurers for efficient hunting.

Sefeng also had confidence in his own strength.

Part of it was the completed evolution; another was the strong humanoid body of the silver-backed gorilla possessing human adventurers’ experience and wisdom, and the five fairly dexterous fingers capable of using so-called "tools" being the source of his pride.

Sefeng didn’t believe other adventurers possessing weak animals like chickens and squirrels could pose any real danger to him.