’I’ve beco everyone’s target. A walking, talking, super-sized point chest.’
"Interesting."
Lin Ye closed the leaderboard and the map, his face showing no sign of tension.
Instead, there was a faint flicker of excitent.
He didn’t mind if so fools who didn’t know any better decided to serve themselves up on a platter.
...
「Four days passed in a flash.」
During those four days, Lin Ye chose not to return to the safe zone to rest and recuperate.
He traveled north, continuously hunting the mutated beasts he encountered along the way, pushing deeper into the heartland of the Northern Great Rift Valley marked on his map.
The vast fallen zone was sparsely populated.
With over thirty contestants scattered throughout, it was like dropping grains of sand into the ocean. The probability of running into soone was extrely low to begin with.
And indeed, Lin Ye hadn’t encountered a single other contestant.
However, he had keenly spotted so movent on the map on his wrist device.
After each map refresh, he noticed that several of the nine golden dots representing the top ten on the leaderboard were, intentionally or not, moving in his general direction.
The straight-line distance between him and these people was constantly shrinking.
’If I’m not mistaken, they’re definitely targeting .’
However, these people also seed wary of the Great Rift Valley region.
The map showed them only hovering and probing around the outskirts of the rift, but not one of them dared to truly set foot in this high-danger area like Lin Ye had.
Over the past four days, Lin Ye’s level remained stuck at Lv. 27, not budging an inch.
On one hand, after leaving the Linchuan Ruins, he hadn’t encountered another cluster of mutated beasts like the insect swarm that would have allowed him to farm experience with impunity.
On the other hand, his Cultivation Technique, the Five Qi Guiding Formulas, had reached a bottleneck. All experience points he gained were forcibly halved, drastically reducing his leveling efficiency.
’Looks like the first thing I need to do after getting into the Qiming General Star Training Camp is to find a way to get a higher-tier Cultivation Technique.’
Lin Ye mused to himself.
As he ventured deeper, the land beneath his feet grew increasingly desolate.
The massive rift valley was like a hideous, bottomless scar on the face of the earth.
A great river must have once flowed at the bottom of the valley, but now only a dry, cracked riverbed and giant, weathered boulders remained.
The late August sun was viciously hot, yet cold, harsh winds swirled within the rift valley.
Sand and dust filled the air, sotis reducing visibility to less than ten ters.
Just as Lin Ye was pressing onward into the depths of the rift against the sandy winds...
He felt the wind seem to grow stronger.
Frenzied currents of air kicked up clouds of yellow sand, forming small whirlwinds that howled through the canyon.
Lin Ye was about to find a rock face to take shelter from the wind for a mont.
Suddenly.
A faint cry for help, almost completely drowned out by the wind, drifted over intermittently.
"Help... help ..."
"Is anyone there?"
"Save ..."
The voice sounded like a woman’s, filled with weakness and despair.
Lin Ye’s footsteps halted.
He was no bleeding-heart saint.
He had previously saved Chan Jiale and the others because they had risked their lives to warn him about the approaching insect swarm.
He had simply saved them as a matter of convenience.
But a woman suddenly crying for help in the depths of this treacherous rift valley?
Lin Ye’s first reaction wasn’t sympathy, but vigilance.
Lin Ye followed the direction of the voice, approaching slowly.
Rounding a massive corner of rock, he saw the person crying for help amidst the swirling yellow sand.
Not far away, a woman in tattered clothes lay collapsed on the sand.
Her lips were chapped, her skin had lost its luster from severe dehydration and clung tightly to her bones, and her eye sockets were sunken. She looked to be on the verge of death.
When she saw Lin Ye’s figure, the woman looked as if she had just seen her last ray of hope.
She struggled, reaching out a withered arm and flailing with the last of her strength, her eyes filled with pleading.
"Save... save ... get out of here..."
Lin Ye’s gaze sharpened slightly.
He had noticed sothing was off.
But he remained outwardly unfazed, pretending to be moved by her pitiful state. He strode forward, making a show of reaching out to help her up.
Closer.
Closer still.
The instant his hand was about to touch the woman...
Everything changed!
Lin Ye’s eyes turned as cold as frost in an instant!
With no warning whatsoever, the Star-Piercing Spear in his hand shot out like a venomous dragon rousing from a long slumber!
The spear’s shadow was a blur, transforming into a flash of black lightning!
PSHFFT!
The spear didn’t strike the woman. Instead, from an incredibly tricky angle, it instantly pierced the yellow sand half a ter beside her!
The muffled sound of a sharp weapon piercing flesh was clearly audible.
The next mont, a sharp, inhuman shriek erupted from beneath the sand!
"HISSS—!"
A vicious, shadowy black claw burst from the sand, whipping up a malevolent wind that tore through the air as it aid straight for Lin Ye’s face!
Lin Ye’s eyes were cold as ice. His body drifted back like a phantom, effortlessly dodging the fatal blow.
And at the sa mont he dodged...
The dying woman who had been pleading pitifully on the ground before him began to distort and blur like a reflection in water, eventually dissipating into nothing.
Where the woman had been, a tail covered in jet-black scales now lay, twisting and struggling madly!
"HISSS—ABBA—!"
Another furious, bizarre cry.
It abruptly burst from the sand, kicking up a huge cloud of dust.
The thing hiding beneath the yellow sand finally revealed its true form.
It was a humanoid creature nearly two ters tall, its entire body covered in pure black Scale Armor that seed to devour light.
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