The little broken wooden sword only symbolically poked at itself. Player Lin recognized the reality, and after tucking the little cat back into his clothes, he dove back into the woods.

Halfway through, an unexpected incident occurred. Just as he was returning, he happened to catch up with the others discussing how to arrange things next. The direction the shadow retreated was exactly towards the center of the secret realm. Continuing in that direction might bring danger, but they had no choice but to go.

The exit of the secret realm was at the center; to leave, they could only head there. Moreover, several disciples seemed to be in poor physical condition. After losing temperature, their spiritual energy began to deplete, and if this continued, it might evolve into a very bad situation. They needed to find a way to solve it.

As expected, the final decision from their discussion was to stick to the original plan but to speed up. Step by step, they approached the center. The traces dragged along the way became more and more obvious, and the strange aura grew heavier. Since stepping into the core area, the group of disciples had not seen any demon beasts or any other disciples from different sects.

The routine headcount changed from once a day to five times a day. Only after confirming that the number of people hadn’t decreased could everyone breathe a little easier.

On the fifth day in the secret realm, they finally stepped into the core area. The core area was all flat land. The group walked across the flat wasteland, and a shadow of a mountain hidden in the light appeared in their sight.

It was a tall mountain, too far away to see clearly, only a black mass visible. The peak connected with the bright trajectory in the sky, and that was where the exit was located.

As long as they could safely wait until the seventh day, they would be able to exit and seek the elders for a solution to the strange black patterns on several disciples.

Lin Zhusheng had never expressed his views on their optimism, and he even wanted to laugh along with them. These people had never seen or understood the Nightmare; he had a bit more knowledge. The black patterns were a sign of being parasitized by the Nightmare’s avatar. As long as the main body of the Nightmare was not dead, the patterns would not disappear, until the host was drained of the last bit of nourishment.

This meant the only way to solve it was to eliminate the Nightmare, just as the little cat had said, relying on him and these generally level ten disciples.

Just thinking about relying on this broken sword and his own level ten self to deal with the ultimate BOSS made him want to laugh from the bottom of his heart.

He could guess that the scene would be comparable to Lin Daiyu pulling up the willow. The willow might not be uprooted, but they had to head towards it first. The distant mountain reached the sky, looking like it would take some climbing. After resting for a moment, everyone got up and set off.

As they crossed the wasteland, the closer they got to the mountain, the more they realized something was wrong.

The sky was filled with black smoke. The mountain didn’t appear black because it was far away; it was because it was surrounded by black mist, covering the entire mountain.

By the time they realized it, it was already too late. The fact that they could clearly see the black smoke meant they had unknowingly walked into the mist.

“…”

While moving, Lin Zhusheng kicked something at his feet. He bent down to push aside the grass and saw a bag lying on the ground. It seemed to be a storage bag, embroidered with a name, next to it were long dragging traces.

He picked up the bag and tucked it into his sleeve, straightening up again.

Standing in the half-person-high grass, small black particles floated past him. In the time it took to bend down and stand back up, the particles became denser, gradually developing into an existence that obstructed his vision.

The wind blew across the wasteland, creating a grand sound of grass leaves rustling, coming from far away and then fading.

The black mist spread, swiftly rushing towards the distance with the wind, quickly engulfing the entire wasteland.

The speed of expansion was much faster than when they first saw it; it seemed the Nightmare had absorbed quite a bit during this time.

Beyond the wasteland was the forest, and beyond the forest was the edge of the secret realm they had come from. It was only a matter of time before the secret realm was completely occupied. With no way back, they could only continue forward.

In his line of sight, he could only vaguely see the figures of others. Lin Zhusheng raised his hand to confirm that the little cat was tucked in safely and carefully stepped in the right direction.

Crossing a small part of the wasteland, he stepped onto the scorched earth, taking out the little broken wooden sword that served as a makeshift hiking stick.

Places long occupied by the Nightmare would turn into this, losing all nutrients and becoming useless scorched earth.

The bad news was that there was a forbidden spell on the mountain. The moment he stepped onto the ground, the surrounding scenery changed, and the figures of the others that he could still vaguely see disappeared completely.

Everyone was scattered, and the empty world was left with only him.

The good news in the bad news was that the trees and ground on the mountain had also turned into a scorched black, crumbling at a touch, extremely fragile, and not blocking the way at all.

The silver-white trajectory in the sky slowly moved, the faint light was blocked by the black mist, and he could only vaguely see the path.

If nothing unexpected happened, the main body of the Nightmare should be at the mountain’s peak.

The strange smell grew stronger the higher he went, to the point where it was hard to ignore, and it even made him feel a bit dizzy.

When he reached halfway up the mountain, climber Lin finally saw the first demon beast since entering the core area.

Then came the second, third, fourth… all under his feet, turning into a pile of white bones, easily crushed upon contact.

There was a sound of something quickly passing in the darkness, and with a “whoosh,” it disappeared. It should be the Nightmare catching another prey.

The little snacks that came to him didn’t move, instead, it seemed to exert effort to catch prey further away.

As he sensed the movement, a slight abnormal feeling came from his wrist. Lin Zhusheng looked down, rolled up his sleeve, and squinted to take a closer look.

Well, it wasn’t that the little snacks weren’t moving.

It seemed that due to the influence of the mist, a black pattern had appeared on his wrist without him noticing, winding and creeping up his arm.

He needed to speed up.

Without a moment’s rest, he dropped his sleeve, propped himself up with the little broken wooden sword, and continued to step forward.

In the secret realm, there was no sun rising or setting, only the silver-white trajectory constantly rotating, and time seemed to remain unchanged forever. According to the outside world’s time, from afternoon to midnight, Lin Zhusheng finally stepped onto the gray stone-paved ground before his stamina was completely exhausted.

He had reached the mountain top.

There were no plants, and the wind seemed to have stopped. In his line of sight, only a quiet gray building stood at the center of the mountain top, with the sky above seeming almost within reach.

Only by standing here could he truly perceive what the constantly rotating trajectory was.

It was a series of bright characters, simple and unadorned yet with unclear meaning, giving off an ancient vibe. Some of the characters had already been tainted by darkness, dimmed to gray.

The building’s main door was tightly shut, not locked, but unable to be pushed open. Lin Zhusheng circled around outside for a bit before finally climbing in through a window.

Climbing in through the window led to a corridor, where the black mist was more intense than outside, more than double. Taking a deep breath, he felt his head go hazy for a moment.

The thick mist lingered, and with the little light filtering in from the window, he could slightly see the situation in the corridor.

It was full of people. A group of people was densely packed against the walls on both sides. The reason the main door couldn’t be pushed open earlier was that a small mountain of demon beasts and many people were piled up at the entrance.

These were disciples from other sects who had entered the secret realm. They hadn’t encountered any along the way and had all gathered here. A large group of people was here, yet there was not a single sound. Lin Zhusheng randomly selected a few disciples with the most obvious black patterns, which had already spread to their faces, and checked their breath and pulse, finding that they were still alive, which made him breathe a sigh of relief.

Each person had a black line on them, moving slowly as if alive, extending towards the depths of the corridor. He swung his sword to test and cut the black line, and in the next moment, the surrounding black mist quickly condensed and formed, filling in the severed segments of the black line.

He couldn’t save them for now.

Getting up and sheathing his sword, he followed the black line deeper into the corridor and pushed open the heavy door.

“Boom—”

The stone door scraped against the ground, making a dull sound, and cold white light seeped through the crack of the door. As he squeezed through the gap, he switched from the wooden sword to a real sword and looked towards the source of the light.

This was the entire building, and also the center of the entire secret realm. Several huge stone pillars supported a hollow dome, directly facing the slowly flowing characters in the sky, forming a trajectory, with the light shining down without any obstruction.

The light illuminated the cracks and damage on the teleportation stone pillars, as well as the black unknown object in the stone array that twisted and squirmed, continuously emitting black mist, with black lines extending from all directions connecting beneath it.

The black unknown object seemed to be highly condensed; when the light reached its surface, it seemed to be directly absorbed, reflecting nothing at all.

Looking down at the basic long sword in his hand, then up at the long, long health bar above, player Lin silently calculated the possibility of winning and couldn’t help but laugh at himself.

There was no need to calculate; the possibility could only be zero.

The Nightmare had altered or directly absorbed the rules of the secret realm, becoming the only existence far exceeding level 20 here. With the demon beasts in the secret realm and the energy of the secret realm itself, its level had reached the delightful 88.

Even if he laughed at himself, he still had to go. The secret realm was isolated from the outside world, and he couldn’t contact anyone. To get out, he could only rely on himself. He twirled the long sword in his hand and slowly approached the black unknown object.

“Click—”

At the moment the sword hilt turned, a faint sound came from the other side of the hall. The long sword that was almost extended stopped, and Lin Zhusheng quickly glanced over, the sword tip turning at the same time. After seeing the source of the sound, his movements paused.

The one making the noise was a person, and a rather familiar one at that. The sound was made because he accidentally stubbed his foot on the stone brick gap beneath him, stumbling forward.

It was Chen Jinghao, but he looked a bit off. The person walked in through the door opened from the other side, his steps slow, eyes vacant, the originally clean whites of his eyes filled with black, resembling red bloodshot veins, taking one step at a time towards the center where the black unknown object was.

The black unknown object slowly formed into a sharp elongated shape, seemingly slowly yet actually approaching the person with incredible speed.

“Chen Jinghao!”

Calling his name was useless. Lin Zhusheng quickly took a few steps forward, bending down to lift his clothes and sliding past the sharp object extending from the unknown object. The tip of the long sword scraped against the ground, creating a series of sparks and a harsh sound.

He grabbed the person, and with his other hand, the long sword swept across the object extending from the unknown entity.

This time, he didn’t hit the avatar formed by the black mist, but the main body. The blood bar that had been still finally moved.

With this sword strike, he dealt one ten-thousandth of the blood bar, and then the black line beneath his feet accelerated its operation, and that one ten-thousandth of blood was instantly replenished.

Well, one ten-thousandth. Lin Daiyu pulling up the willow turned into Lin Daiyu angrily tugging at the willow leaves; she hadn’t even pulled them off, and new ones had even grown.

In response, the Nightmare, which had always regarded him as a harmless walking snack, seemed to be enraged. The black mist condensed into an attacking form, splitting into more shadows, rushing from all directions.

The speed was quick, so fast that his eyes couldn’t keep up, and he could only rely on his instincts to dodge.

With Chen Shaozong rolling on the ground, his gaze fell on the disciples sprawled across the corridor outside the door. He directly slapped Chen Shaozong’s face to wake him up a bit, while running towards the window that led outside.

“Crash—”

Chen Jinghao was ruthlessly slapped awake in an instant. Just as he regained consciousness, the sound of the glass window shattering rang in his ears, the sharp noise filling his eardrums, and then he rolled on the ground several times.

The building’s wall was smashed open by the black shadow following behind, and the bricks fell to the ground with a series of violent sounds.

When he woke up, Lin Zhusheng was the first to notice, slicing through the attacking shadow with his sword, asking, “What are you doing here?”

“I came to find you.”

Covering his dizzy head, Chen Jinghao stood up from the ground, waving away the black mist rushing at him, saying, “They all went down the mountain.”

After they split up in the mountain, he encountered Song Ming, the senior sister from He Huan Sect, and some other disciples on the way up. The black mist on the mountain had an effect on the mind; the deeper they went, the more it affected them. The other disciples could only become muddled if they stayed longer, so they had to go down.

The senior sister’s spiritual energy was basically unusable, and only Song Ming remained the most capable, taking on the responsibility of bringing the others down the mountain. He felt that the people beside him would definitely come here to check, so he came over as well.

He just didn’t expect the mist at the mountain top to be this thick, thick enough that he couldn’t resist it, and without realizing it, he was controlled, not even knowing what he was doing.

After breathing in a few puffs of mist, the stinging and heavy feeling surged uncontrollably again. He barely stood upright to avoid the attacking shadow, squeezing out a voice from his throat, saying, “This mist is problematic; you should… go.”

The black, bloodshot things in his eyes began to squirm, and his action of standing straight paused, his words suddenly stopping.

So, he hadn’t walked straight towards it because his brain suddenly malfunctioned; he had been influenced by the mist.

Lin Zhusheng scratched his head in a flurry, feeling that although he felt heavy, it didn’t seem that serious.

But he indeed had no special abilities or particularly special equipment… wait.

—This was a gift, something that could clear the mind and brighten the eyes.

After the sect competition, in the outer sect’s small house, the senior brother who had returned from outside had given him something.

A red-grade extreme ice cloud ribbon, with the effect of clearing the mind and brightening the eyes. A few fragments flashed through his mind, and he suddenly looked at Chen Jinghao, whose eyes were almost filled with black veins, without a hint of hesitation, directly took off the hairpin from his head.

So, the Nightmare wasn’t letting him wander around carelessly because it looked down on him; it had been trying to control him just like it controlled this young master, but the method was blocked by the ribbon.

The Nightmare stopped attacking repeatedly, falling into a brief silence. In that silence, its entire body overflowed from the broken wall, slowly rising into the air, creating a black cyclone, brewing a more massive offensive.

Taking advantage of the brief moment, he stuffed the ribbon into Chen Jinghao’s hand, tore off the ice-blue ribbon, and wrapped it around his wrist two or three times before tying it. Watching the black line in his eyes slowly fade, he breathed a sigh of relief.

The moment the ribbon left his hand, he could feel something trying to invade his mind, a dull pain constantly transmitting through his nerves, as if a layer of pepper had been sprinkled on his cerebral cortex, rubbed repeatedly, and then hammered hard, making it difficult to have the energy for independent thought.

It was hard to think independently, but he still remembered to remind him, “This was given to me by the senior brother; you mustn’t lose it or break it. You must return it to me later.”

The cyclone created by the Nightmare was still expanding, a sudden strong wind arose, blowing across the wasteland and high mountains, causing the scorched earth and fragments of corpses on the mountain to start moving, filling the air with a dead silence.

Not daring to linger for a moment, after Chen Jinghao regained his sanity, he pulled the person beside him and ran down the mountain, saying as they ran, “As long as we get through one more day, the secret realm’s door will open, and then we can go out. The elders will find a way to deal with this thing.”

As long as they could find a way to survive this thing and find a place to hide… but he didn’t pull it.

A sudden panic surged in his heart. He turned his head in the wind, facing a pair of eyes mostly covered by long hair and the sword in the person’s hand.

“Tomorrow, the secret realm exit will not open. The teleportation stone array has been destroyed, and the exit will never appear again.”

The sword hilt turned in his hand, making the unique sound of a mechanism moving. Lin Zhusheng said, “This thing can’t be let out either.”

Some disciples seemed to not be able to wait until tomorrow. So the only way was to completely deal with the Nightmare here and find another way out.

Although it was a bit bold, he already had a vague idea in his mind, and it was the only way left.

The sharp pain continued to come to his mind, but he consciously ignored it, raised his hand to cover the mouth of the person in front of him, and leaned in closer, looking into their eyes, saying, “No matter what you see later, you mustn’t tell anyone.”

If they could survive and get out.

He still had a cutting card he had gotten from the little cat earlier, which was limited to one hour. But he had never used it and didn’t know the strength of the other account, nor how much he could exert, so using it had a gambling element to it.

Chen Jinghao didn’t understand what he meant, only feeling that something was off. He reached out to grasp the hand covering his mouth, but the other party retracted their hand first. He barely brushed past the person’s fingers, grasping at air.

“Whoosh—”

The rapidly converging black mist took shape, suddenly swooping down from the high sky. The sound arrived before the body, and the overwhelming black shadows quickly descended, blocking all light and blurring all vision.

Being swept away from his original spot, he widened his eyes, watching helplessly as the hand that had been so close disappeared into the ink-like black mist, reaching out in vain to grasp it, but catching nothing.

The vast black mist continued, flowing down the mountain, stirring up fragments of dead trees, searching for the crowd resting at the foot of the mountain.

When the thick mist swept to halfway up the mountain, a faint sword light flickered.