Snake Skeletons

When Xiao Ming entered the spatial passage, he felt a wave of dizziness wash over his head. By the time he adapted, he found himself in an entirely different world.

The moment his feet touched the ground, Xiao Ming took his weapon from his Na Ring—a black broadsword that did not draw much attention.

This was one of Xiao Ming's spoils from his dozen or so days in the Black Corner Region.

When he had acquired this sword, Xiao Ming had tested it. Its durability was sufficient for him to use.

He used this sword rather than his original Fifth-Tier Magic Core sword because the latter was far too eye-catching. If others saw it, it would definitely cause trouble. At other times, that might not have mattered, but the Secret Realm was now filled with powerful experts, including Dou Emperors and Dou Wangs. It was never wrong to keep a low profile.

Thus, Xiao Ming took out this sword.

Holding the black sword, Xiao Ming first glanced around, only to discover in astonishment that there was no one nearby.

The Dou Emperor and Dou Wang experts who had charged into the Secret Realm ahead of everyone else had vanished as well.

"That shouldn't be the case," Xiao Ming said doubtfully.

Dou Emperor and Dou Wang experts could fly, so it was understandable for them to disappear in the blink of an eye.

But what about those who had entered at roughly the same time as him?

There was no reason for them to be gone too, was there?

Xiao Ming was deeply puzzled. He had taken out his weapon earlier precisely to guard against those people launching a sneak attack on him.

Now that there was no one around, he felt as though he had made a fuss over nothing.

Still, their absence saved him a great deal of trouble.

Temporarily free from the need to guard against attacks, Xiao Ming took a few steps to the left to prevent anyone from appearing behind him, then began observing this Secret Realm.

Looking up, he saw that this world was exceptionally gloomy. The sky was a hazy gray, without a single cloud. The heavens hung so low that they seemed within reach, and a single glance was enough to evoke a sense of desolation.

Not far ahead lay a small mountain range. Many towering trees Xiao Ming had never seen before grew within it, and faintly visible among them were pavilions and towers. At the center of the range stood its tallest peak, where another pillar of light identical to the one outside rose into the air.

Xiao Ming turned and looked behind him. Several meters away stood a black passage more than ten meters wide, while farther beyond stretched a Gray Plain whose end could not be seen.

"The mountain range should be the center of this Secret Realm. There must be more than one such spatial passage, and several likely exist at the same time. That explains why no one was beside me just now—they entered through other passages."

In that brief span of time, Xiao Ming combined this with the information he had gained from his previous Life Simulations and reached that conclusion.

After reaching that conclusion, Xiao Ming felt rather lucky. This spatial passage allowed him to see the buildings within the mountain range, and there was no one around him now.

As long as he was fast enough and no flying Dou Wang expert appeared behind him, he could get there first and seize the treasures inside instead of struggling bitterly against others for them.

Looks like my luck is pretty good today.

Delighted, Xiao Ming no longer hesitated. He circulated the Dou Qi within his body, lifted his feet, and shot toward the distant mountain range.

Not long after Xiao Ming disappeared, several figures appeared where he had just been standing.

Each of them had disordered Aura, their bodies stained red with blood. Some were even wounded, with droplets of blood falling from them from time to time.

After landing, they too immediately drew their weapons and guarded against one another. Once they clearly saw their surroundings and the distant mountain range—

They all burst into wild laughter.

"Hahaha! That wasn't easy. I finally squeezed my way in. I have to say, those lunatics really struck hard."

"There are buildings over there. There must be treasures!"

"Treasure, here I come!"

"Hehehe!"

After laughing and speaking, they did not dare waste time. Keeping a wary distance from one another, they all broke into a sprint toward the buildings Xiao Ming had headed for.

What they did not see was that all the blood they had dripped onto the soil silently vanished, as if something had absorbed it.

After traveling for some time, Xiao Ming finally entered the forest within the mountain range.

Xiao Ming's first impression upon entering the forest was that it was enormous.

The trees in the forest were even larger than Xiao Ming had anticipated. Each one required more than ten people to wrap their arms around it.

"This forest is lush with branches and leaves, with countless limbs extending everywhere. Every branch could easily hide someone. It's a good place to ambush others."

As he circulated Dou Qi and rushed toward the buildings he had spotted earlier like a ghost, Xiao Ming glanced at the thick trees and a thought flashed through his mind.

As time passed, more and more people would definitely enter this Secret Realm. Those who entered later certainly would not be able to get the first share as he had.

When that happened, those desperadoes who had long been accustomed to lawlessness in the Black Corner Region would definitely not accept it. This place was so suited to murder and robbery—how could they possibly miss such an opportunity?

It was foreseeable that this forest would swallow many lives over the next few days.

"Hm? What is this?"

Xiao Ming suddenly noticed something ahead and stopped.

His path had been blocked.

What blocked Xiao Ming was not a person, but a skeleton.

Xiao Ming stared at the enormous skeleton before him in astonishment.

Judging by its shape, the skeleton was nearly a hundred meters long and more than ten meters wide, winding through the forest. From its appearance, it was clearly the snow-white remains of a high-tier Snake Magical Beast.

Perhaps because too much time had passed, or for some other reason, cracks had appeared throughout the skeleton. Little of its residual Aura remained, making it difficult for Xiao Ming to determine the corpse's exact tier.

However, Xiao Ming guessed that when the owner of this skeleton had been alive, it might have possessed the strength of the Sixth Tier.

Of course, Xiao Ming was not making a random guess. He had a basis for it: its size.

Although a Magical Beast's strength did not necessarily mean that the stronger it was, the larger its body would be, and high-tier Magical Beasts could often be very small—

Low-tier Magical Beasts, however, were truly always small, at least among land-dwelling Magical Beasts.

As for why that was—

The reason was simple. If a weak Magical Beast was so large and conspicuous, it would be easily killed and eaten by other Magical Beasts.

Moreover, a large body meant it needed a larger space to survive and had to compete with other Magical Beasts.

Only the strong were qualified to possess large territories. The weak could never seize land for themselves.

Therefore, on land, those Magical Beast races that were outrageously large yet weak had long since been exterminated in ancient times. Only in certain special places with little competition might some still remain.

In the ocean, because of the different way of life, there could still be many large yet weak Magical Beasts.

But the Black Corner Region was nowhere near the sea, so Xiao Ming concluded that these might be the remains of a Sixth-Tier Magical Beast.

The skeletal remains did not delay Xiao Ming for long. Circulating Dou Qi, he leaped between the bones.

He quickly passed through the skeleton and continued toward his target, the buildings.

However, before long, Xiao Ming encountered another skeleton. This was the skeleton of an ape-like creature more than ten meters tall, nowhere near as massive as the earlier snake bones.

Xiao Ming paid it no mind, but then skeletons of all kinds of Magical Beasts began appearing one after another. There were even human bones among them.

I wonder what happened to the force that once owned this Secret Realm, for it to vanish so completely. With so many skeletons here, there must have been a fierce battle in the past.