Return to the Wilderness Zone

After spending half a month traveling with his family, Qin Hao returned home with only half a month left until the New Year. He planned to make another trip to the Wilderness Zone. Having grown used to hunting excursions at the Elite Training Camp, half a month of idleness had left him feeling restless.

He had originally planned to meet Luo Feng and check on his training progress. However, the two of them had missed each other perfectly. While Qin Hao was traveling with his family, Luo Feng had also gone home for a visit before heading back into the Wilderness Zone.

After briefly packing his Backpack and informing his family, Qin Hao set off for the Wilderness Zone. The same special train, the same Military Camp—yet when he entered again, he felt completely different.

This time, Qin Hao's goal in entering the Wilderness Zone was not merely slaughter. More importantly, he wanted to get closer to nature and deepen his understanding of martial arts. Many of the cultivation records in Hong's experience had been recorded during the Great Nirvana, in various places such as wildernesses, mountains, rivers, and lakes.

For Qin Hao, both his Movement Technique and Blade Technique needed to reach the Artistic Conception level next. However, the Artistic Conception level could not be attained through simple training alone. Foundation, mastery, perfection, artistic conception, domain—this was a process of moving from control over one's body and inner self to resonating with the outside world and heaven and earth.

To comprehend artistic conception, one could not separate oneself from understanding heaven and earth. One had to witness all kinds of natural phenomena in this world and gain insight into different artistic conceptions from them.

After entering the Wilderness Zone, Qin Hao had no fixed destination. He simply continued onward in one direction, taking in the scenery and nature along the way. Sometimes he stopped to watch quietly; other times, he only caught a fleeting glimpse.

In this way, Qin Hao continued deeper into the Wilderness Zone, gradually reaching the area where Huangshan had stood before the Great Nirvana. As one of Huaxia's most famous mountains, Huangshan's scenery had once drawn countless tourists.

However, during the Great Nirvana, Huangshan had gradually been occupied by all kinds of Monsters. Even now, very few martial artists came to the Huangshan region. Most martial artists chose former cities as the centers of their hunts and rarely ventured deep into the mountains and wilderness.

Once he entered Huangshan, Qin Hao involuntarily slowed down. In his previous life, he had wanted to come and see it, but he had never put that desire into action. Since he was here in this life, he would take a proper look at this most wondrous mountain under heaven—especially after decades of nature's recovery.

Strange pines, bizarre rocks, seas of clouds, and remnants of cultural Ruins: ancient stone paths, old couplets, ancient bridges, pavilions, temples, pagodas, and all kinds of cliffside inscriptions. Although most had been damaged again, quite a few still remained.

"Someone has entered the restricted area."

"Switch the feed."

Inside a mountain cavern, the image rapidly changed, revealing Qin Hao's figure. Yet these people were not speaking Huaxia's language, but Japanese.

"A Huaxia martial artist? Release Experiment Subject No. 56 and drive him away."

By then, Qin Hao had already reached the mountaintop. As he looked at Huangshan's sea of clouds, endless admiration rose within him.

The scenery was beautiful and captivating. No wonder it had attracted so many tourists and inspired countless poems. But in this world, reaching this place had become far more difficult. Though the view was beautiful, ordinary people could no longer see it.

Along the way up the mountain, Qin Hao had encountered quite a few Monsters. There had even been Beast General-level Monsters among them, and many traveled in packs. Even human War General squads would find them difficult to handle.

The Monsters in the mountains differed greatly from those in cities. Most urban Monsters had evolved from former livestock and zoo animals. Mountain Monsters, on the other hand, were mainly wild beasts. They already possessed a certain degree of attacking power, and after mutating, both their strength and aggression became even greater.

When night fell, Qin Hao directly set up a perimeter on the mountaintop. He then lay atop the peak and gazed at the night sky above. Endless Xingchen, bright moonlight, the tranquil night sky, occasional roars echoing through the forest, trees and ridges shrouded in darkness... together, they seemed to form a strange painting.

As he sensed everything around him, Qin Hao felt as though he were becoming part of Huangshan, part of the night itself. Every subtle change around him became exceptionally clear to his senses.

"Rustle, rustle, rustle." Though the sound was faint, it was exceptionally clear to Qin Hao's ears.

"A Monster is here. What a mood killer." Qin Hao did not act immediately, instead allowing the Monster to approach. It moved extremely fast and soon arrived beside him, lunging straight at Qin Hao.

At the instant he was attacked, the Black God Set covered Qin Hao's entire body, and he vanished from where he stood.

"Hm, something's wrong." When Qin Hao saw the Monster attacking him, he noticed something unusual. It was quite strong, possessing the power of an Intermediate Beast General, but its appearance was extremely strange.

It had a crow-like beak and black wings, the body and head of a dog, and limbs strikingly similar to a human's, covered in fur that seemed to belong to a gorilla or monkey. Even Qin Hao was startled when he saw it.

This was not Qin Hao's first time dealing with Monsters, and he knew quite a bit about most of them. Monsters had evolved from animals that existed before the Great Nirvana. Although their size and appearance had changed, one could generally still tell what they had once been.

But this Monster did not exist in reality at all. Instead, it was a stitched-together abomination.

"Karasu Tengu?" A name surfaced in Qin Hao's mind. It was a famous Japanese yokai that often appeared in Japanese anime and games in his previous life. However, in the world of Swallowed Star, Japan had disappeared during the Great Nirvana, and very few people knew of such distinctly Japanese yokai.

Why was it here? As Qin Hao dodged, he continued thinking. Was Japan stirring up trouble again?

Qin Hao could not help recalling the Japanese people he had encountered before. There had to be some connection between the two. In his previous life, Japan had constantly immigrated to various places and had even established closed Japanese schools, including in Huaxia. Those isolated Japanese schools, with their strict security, had sparked plenty of speculation.

Let me see what these people are really up to. After making his decision, Qin Hao drew his long blade and left wound after wound across the Monster's body. Although there were many injuries, none was fatal. Still, they gradually pushed the Monster into a severely wounded state.

As the battle continued, the Monster gradually became afraid and began preparing to flee. After more than a dozen additional exchanges, it let out a mournful cry, flapped its wings, rose into the air, and flew toward the depths of the mountain.