War Approaching?

Wang Wu stared fixedly. There were still a few minutes before Violet Gold Three Minutes began.

That White-Haired Rat ran at astonishing speed and climbed the cliff in no time.

As expected, the Scorpion King did not attack, but Wang Wu had no idea what they communicated about.

He only vaguely saw the White-Haired Rat approach the flag, with nothing unusual happening.

As for the Gray Rat Knights it led, they did not climb the cliff and instead waited below it.

Then the Mantis Swordsman Legion did the same, marching neatly to the foot of the cliff and naturally taking up an empty spot. Then Wang Wu suddenly saw three exceptionally huge Mantis Swordsmen climbing up from the other side of the cliff. The largest among them was unmistakably the Golden Holy Mantis that had once abducted a Black Snake Priest.

It was now nearly the size of a small teddy dog—in other words, nearly as large as Wang Wu was now.

Its pair of golden blades gleamed beneath the sunlight.

The other two Mantis Swordsmen were only pale gold, slightly inferior to the first, but they were undoubtedly leader-class as well.

These three Mantis Swordsmen also touched the flag, and the Scorpion King likewise did not attack them.

Even without seeing more details, Wang Wu could already be certain that a terrifying military alliance was taking shape in this valley.

At that moment, golden sunlight streamed down, and Violet Gold Three Minutes officially began. The instant that sunlight fell upon the flag, Wang Wu's eyes turned bloodshot.

Because he recognized it at once. What flag was that? It was clearly a small piece of bear hide—Ancient Giant Bear hide, at that.

Yet beneath the sunlight, this small piece of bear hide gave off a rainbow-colored halo. It was absolutely what Spiritual Essence looked like after reaching a very high level.

Under the effect of that small piece of bear hide, the Golden Particles within several hundred meters were rapidly drawn toward it as if beyond control, ultimately forming a terrifying vortex of Golden Particles.

Yet those Golden Particles were released through some kind of spell on the Bearhide Banner, feeding back into the Scorpion King, the White-Haired Rat, and the three Mantis Swordsman leaders, before finally feeding back into the Gray Rat Legion and Mantis Swordsman Legion below the cliff.

Thanks to that flag, they gained twice as much as usual—perhaps even three times as much.

But Wang Wu's mood kept sinking, as though he had fallen into a bottomless abyss.

This feeling was utterly dreadful!

A moment later, Wang Wu calmed down. He still dashed out of the bushes and arrived at the foot of the low hill where the Black Centipede was. A Mantis Swordsman Legion had just left this place, so there was plenty of room to bask in the sun.

He could not give up this way of obtaining Spiritual Qi by sunbathing.

He wanted to grow. He wanted to become stronger. Spiritual Qi was indispensable.

Nor could he become a Bear Assassin and rely on hunting other Sprites every day to obtain Spiritual Qi. That method could only be used occasionally.

Sure enough, Wang Wu's appearance did not cause much of a stir among the Sprites here. Everyone seemed to tacitly agree that this time of day was meant to be peaceful.

Even the Black Centipede above and its descendants did not pay him much attention.

The premise was that there were enough empty spots.

However, Wang Wu's Level 4 Danger Sense still sharply caught the malice coming from afar.

There was no need to think about it. One source of that malice was the Scorpion King, and the other was that White-Haired Rat.

Wang Wu's heart pounded like a drum, but outwardly he remained unmoved. The moment Silver Three Minutes arrived, his Level 1 Spiritual Essence talent activated automatically, swiftly catching the drifting Golden Particles with efficiency far surpassing the other Sprites.

However, because such a large area had been left vacant, no Sprites came to attack him for the moment.

As Wang Wu calculated, he kept watching the cliff three hundred meters away.

The instant the three minutes ended and no more Golden Particles could be absorbed, he sprang forward like a launched arrow, darting straight into the bushes. He then ran wildly through them, crossed the creek, followed its bank upstream, ran some distance, crossed the creek again, and quickly entered Level 5 Stealth within a patch of grass.

Only after completing all that did his heart settle slightly.

Then, without hesitation, he spent 20 points of Spiritual Qi to raise his Danger Sense talent to Level 5.

This was the current maximum level.

Taking Level 5 Stealth as a reference, one could understand just how powerful Level 5 Danger Sense was.

Now, using his Level 5 Danger Sense talent to observe his surroundings, he moved slowly through patch after patch of grass and continued upstream along the creek. In any case, he only wanted to get far away from the Scorpion King and the White-Haired Rat.

He had not been able to beat them in the first place. Now that they had backers, they were even less someone he could afford to provoke.

And so, using that one hour in the morning and combining Level 5 Stealth with Level 5 Danger Sense, Wang Wu actually migrated nearly five hundred meters upstream along the creek in one go.

That distance might not sound like much, but within the valley's complex ecosystem, where competition was brutally intense, it was in fact extremely terrifying.

Because with one careless step, he might enter some Sprite's territory.

Once discovered, it would become an invasion war that would not end until one side was dead.

The terrain upstream was clearly higher. The vegetation had not changed much, with dense bushes everywhere and lush wild grass dozens of centimeters tall carpeting the ground.

There were only a few scattered large trees, but without question, every one of them was occupied by stronger contenders in the ecological hierarchy.

The only difference lay in the low hills on either side.

The mountain ridges on both sides of this valley ran in a zigzag pattern.

The place where Wang Wu had originally stayed was where the zigzag bulged outward. Now that he had run more than eight hundred meters upstream, one side of the ridge had curved inward.

More precisely, if Wang Wu wanted to bask in the sun from now on, he would either have to keep heading east and cross that clearly taller ridge, or trek at least eight hundred meters west.

As he hesitated, his heart suddenly stirred. An inexplicable danger and inexplicable agitation surged up within him. He immediately understood what was happening, did not dare move, and did his utmost to maintain Level 5 Stealth.

A few seconds later, the feeling swept away, and everything returned to normal.

At that moment, he slightly shifted his eyes and saw that a Giant Eagle had actually flown into the skies above this part of the valley as well.

But it was not yesterday's Black Giant Eagle. Today's eagle had brown feathers and was slightly larger.

This Brown Giant Eagle was not hunting. Its enormous talons were actually clutching a flag as it descended toward a mountain peak eight hundred meters away.

A moment later, when the Brown Giant Eagle took flight again, the flag was gone from its talons.

After circling several times, it actually flew toward the skies above the cliff downstream by the creek. Very soon, the Black Giant Eagle appeared from who knew where, swift as lightning, and tangled with the Brown Giant Eagle high in the sky.

They showed no mercy simply because they were of the same kind. Even from eight hundred meters away, Wang Wu found the sight soul-stirring. With a mere flap of their wings, they could whip up raging gales. Occasionally, enormous cyan wind blades sliced through the air; wherever their aftermath passed, trees snapped and rocks exploded into flight!

Not to mention the bushes and grass—or Sprites like Wang Wu. To touch one would mean certain death!

The two Giant Eagles fought for more than ten exchanges without either gaining the upper hand. Their feathers rained down one after another, and they seemed to have suffered no light injuries.

Only then did both sides cease fighting.

The Black Giant Eagle flew crookedly toward the southwestern forest.

The Brown Giant Eagle flew crookedly toward North Mountain.

Watching them disappear, Wang Wu grew even more terrified. Clearly, a war between the forces of two Great Demons was about to erupt, and this valley happened to lie right between those two Great Demon forces.

What should he do?

He was so scared!