I have to admit, the battle with the Hunting Lizard pack truly showed me my teammates' strength. Back when I beat Rui Feng, I subconsciously lumped them into "early-game cannon fodder." Now I realize how rude that was. Abilities like sonic waves and electric shocks are tough to handle. Especially Lin Bing's freezing field—it completely counters my Anomaly Power. Captain Rui Feng's Anomaly Power might be weak, but his combat skills are incredible and he's super experienced. I can't afford to underestimate him just because I won once.
We quickly reformed our formation and sped toward our destination. The earlier battle made a lot of noise—it might attract other monsters. The ground was littered with Hunting Lizard corpses, each containing spirit cores. A single core wasn't worth much, but together they added up to a tidy sum. Yet not one of us lingered to collect them. No one wanted to slow down for that. Truly, only a top-tier clan could have such discipline.
"Hey, Ye! I secretly grabbed a few spirit cores," Rui Xin messaged me through sonic waves as I was lost in thought. "Let's trade them for snacks when we get back~"
…Scratch that.
Along the way, we encountered several more monster packs. Almost all appeared in groups, and each time we wiped them out without a doubt. I wasn't sure if they were just weak or if we were that strong (I leaned toward the latter). Slowly, I noticed a pattern: weaker monsters loved to swarm, relying on numbers to make up for strength. Truly powerful ones were loners—grouping up would only hold them back. According to Rui Xin, the lairs of strong monsters were deep inside, so we wouldn't meet any yet.
That night, we camped on a dry patch of grass. Sinan Long pulled out his compass. It wasn't as fancy as Sinan Ying's, but definitely better than what lower-rankers used. First, he used the compass to open a small but highly precise detection field. After confirming no venomous bugs or snakes were hiding underground, he pried open the compass base.
"Hey... what are you doing?"
"This compass has tons of functions," he replied. "Super practical."
He took out a few spirit stones, each no bigger than a marble, stuffed them in, and snapped the base shut. I felt an extremely faint ripple spread from the compass. When it passed over me, my body tingled slightly, like a static shock.
"You don't need someone to operate this thing constantly," he explained. "Load it with spirit stones, and it runs automatically. Right now, it's set up an alarm net. It'll alert us if anything approaches."
What a handy feature. It would greatly ease the guards' burden. Just as I thought that, my whole body went numb—as if hit by a strong static current. Sinan Long's face paled too. "Alarm! And it came right on cue!"
We rushed to the camp's edge. Many were already there, weapons in hand, but everyone looked relaxed—no tension at all. I squeezed to the front and finally saw the intruders... but what the heck were these?
A pile of colorful, fluffy creatures huddled on the ground. Each was only ankle-high, like a mix of Angora rabbit and squirrel. With short limbs, they rolled around, squeaking. They didn't look dangerous at all—in fact, kinda... cute?
Sinan Long burst out laughing. "It's just Lamon rabbits! False alarm. They're one of the few herbivore monsters here. Usually hide in burrows. Guess we camped right next to their nest."
Herbivore monsters? The more I looked at these bunnies, the more I liked them. Small, fluffy, harmless—totally different from the hideous, fanged monsters we'd met before. They perfectly healed my soul.
So cute~ I wanted to catch one and keep it as a pet~~
Crack! Li Cha beside me kicked out, instantly crushing a Lamon rabbit's head.
"Waaaaaaah! My pet! Waaaaaah!!!!!!"
"Why are you so worked up, Miss Ye?" Sinan Long looked at me in surprise. "Lamon rabbit meat is famously delicious. Didn't you know?"
I neither knew nor wanted to know! Wait, were you all happy just because you could eat rabbit meat!?
...So for dinner, we had grilled rabbit skewers. I said I didn't want any, but my body betrayed me—I ate skewer after skewer. Damn... it was so good...
The night passed uneventfully. The next day, we set off at dawn again. Barring surprises, we'd reach the first detection point—Salt Crystal Lake—by afternoon.
I noticed with surprise that as we neared our destination, vegetation thinned out, and monsters grew scarce. By noon, the surroundings were pure wasteland—just like Earth's deserts. It did look like the kind of place an inland saltwater lake would be.
"We're here," Rui Feng at the front pointed ahead.
Ahead lay a vast, shimmering lake. Up close, I saw a thick layer of crystallized salt about twenty centimeters below the surface, covering the entire lake like an underwater partition. The salt was etched with patterns from water flow—natural designs more beautiful than any man-made art. It was breathtaking.
"I never expected such a beautiful lake in this wilderness!" Rui Xin marveled. She turned to me and gasped, "Ye, are you crying?"
Huh?
Her words snapped me to attention. Two hot tears had streamed down my cheeks, past my chin, visible even under my hood. I quickly wiped them away. An indescribable sadness rose in my heart—a feeling I'd never known since coming to Spirit Star. Homesickness.
Yes, homesickness! When I was little, my father's job took us to a small town in Qinghai. I still remember vividly the salt lake near that town—azure sky, clear water, beautiful salt layers—just like this scene before me! For a moment, I was back in childhood, laughing and jumping on the salt crust in my sandals, my father chasing after me, telling me not to run too far...
"...Ye, Ye!"
"...Ah, sorry. I zoned out." Rui Xin's voice finally brought me back.
"You suddenly cried, then spaced out. What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Just... missing home a bit."
Rui Xin's eyes sharpened. This was a perfect chance to probe the mysterious girl's past. But she held her tongue. Exploiting someone's sorrow was just too tasteless.
"Alright, everyone quiet down. I'm starting. Need to focus."
We fell silent immediately. Sinan Long arranged spirit stones in a circle on the ground. Standing at its center, he held the compass to his chest, eyes closed, seemingly meditating. Moments later, the air trembled faintly. Spiritual energy dispersed in the air surged toward him with incredible force. Thick, liquid-like streams of energy shot from the stones on the ground—some flowed into his body, most into the compass. One by one, the spirit stones drained of energy, losing their luster, but the compass kept sucking them dry.
"Hum!"
Finally, as the last spirit stone dimmed, the compass let out a low hum. The strongest ripple I'd ever felt spread out, covering the entire lake, the desert, and a third of our assigned zone. Sinan Long held his pose, brow furrowed, eyelids twitching slightly—he seemed to be straining hard. We stood far away, afraid to disturb him.
Time ticked by. After thirty minutes, the compass finally stopped. Sinan Long slumped to the ground, exhausted but relieved. "Detection complete. Preliminary analysis shows no anomalies. Key data's stored in the compass. We'll analyze it further back at base..."
We moved to help him up, but his face turned ashen.
"Beware the ground!!!"
No sooner had he spoken than the ground shook violently. A scar-like fissure split the wasteland. Dirt and rocks collapsed into the crack, and within seconds, it widened into a massive pit!
Once the pit formed, the shaking stopped. But our sense of danger grew stronger. Something extremely dangerous had to be lurking below that abyss! Somehow, all sounds around us vanished, leaving only the deathly silence before a great battle.
"Hiiiiisssss..."
A strange sound rose from underground—raspy, dry, like a broken radio. It gave me goosebumps just hearing it.
Boom! The ground jolted. A huge cloud of sand and rocks shot into the air. A massive creature leaped out, crashing down heavily. Dust filled the air. When it cleared, I stared dumbfounded at the bizarre being before us. My teammates all wore looks of disbelief. Rui Feng's expression was graver than ever.
"It's... a Wasteland Beast..."
