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Eastern region of the Star Dou Great Forest.

The fog was thick.

The damp white mist clung to their faces like sticky glue, carrying a sickly-sweet stench of rotting leaves mixed with the droppings of unknown beasts.

The light was shattered by the ancient trees overhead, their canopies blotting out the sky and casting mottled patches of darkness that looked like lurking ghosts.

The air quality in this hellhole was worse than the delivery kitchen from his previous life during its busiest rushes.

The five members of the Mengli Squad had their nerves stretched taut as fully drawn bowstrings.

The burly man called Ahu had veins bulging along his muscular arms as he gripped a mountain-splitting axe tightly. His eyes were wide as bells as he vigilantly scanned every shadow that might conceal danger.

The others stood back-to-back in a defensive formation as well, weapons drawn. Every step was cautious and silent.

Only Han Yuchen looked like a tourist who had wandered into a death trap.

He still wore that battered conical hat, his hands tucked into his sleeves as he leisurely followed at the rear of the group. Dry branches and fallen leaves crunched softly beneath his feet.

In this deathly silent forest, that sound was practically a military searchlight.

Ahu turned and glared at him, lowering his voice until his lips barely moved.

"Sir, tread more lightly!"

Han Yuchen could not even be bothered to lift his eyelids.

Footsteps?

Heh. In this forest, true hunters never relied on their ears.

Meng Li pulled a yellowed beast-hide map from his chest and held it before his eyes, his brow knotted tightly.

He pointed at a vague route on the map, then looked up at several nearly identical forks in the path and said in a low voice, "Sir, let's take the left path. The map says it can take us around the Poisonous Marsh ahead."

That path did indeed look decent.

The ground was relatively level, with little undergrowth and even fewer fallen leaves.

It was so clean that it looked as though someone had swept it on purpose.

Han Yuchen finally lifted his head. From beneath the shadow of his conical hat, he glanced at that "clean" path, then shook his head.

He raised a finger and pointed toward the dense virgin jungle on the right, where even light could not penetrate.

"No. We go that way."

The moment he said that, the air froze.

Everyone in the Mengli Squad stopped and looked at him in unison.

Their eyes were filled with confusion, and even a trace of suspicion.

"Sir, over there..."

Meng Li stopped halfway through, but his meaning was obvious.

There was no path over there at all.

It was a dead zone.

A young team member in his early twenties named Monkey was bolder because of his youth. Unable to hold it in, he muttered softly, "What's wrong with clean? Clean means safe... Boss, is this guy reliable?"

His voice was not loud, but in the forest, where a falling needle could be heard, everyone caught it clearly.

Meng Li's expression darkened slightly.

He did not understand either.

His experience told him that the left path was the way to live.

But his instincts—or rather, the fear Han Yuchen's inhuman methods had planted in him at the tavern two nights ago—kept him from refuting him lightly.

Han Yuchen had no interest in explaining what an "ecological trap" was.

Clean?

In a place like the Star Dou Great Forest, clean meant not a blade of grass could grow.

And where not a blade of grass could grow, it meant some powerful predator had turned the place into its private dining hall.

That path was not a path.

It was a red carpet leading straight into a monster's stomach.

He withdrew his hand and tucked it back into his sleeve, his tone as calm as if he were asking what they should eat today.

"Trust me."

"Or leave now."

There was no threat and no explanation.

It was simply a multiple-choice question.

A layer of fine sweat seeped across Meng Li's forehead.

He stared hard at Han Yuchen's face hidden beneath the shadow of the conical hat, trying to discern something.

But all he saw was calm—an unfathomably deep calm.

As though they were not discussing a choice between life and death, but whether to add an egg to lunch.

Three seconds later.

Meng Li gritted his teeth fiercely, as though making the most important decision of his life.

He turned and snarled at his men.

"What the hell are you standing around for? Listen to the sir. We're taking the right!"

"Boss!"

Monkey wanted to say more, but Meng Li's vicious glare forced the words back down his throat.

"Execute the order!"

In the end, the group reluctantly followed Han Yuchen and plunged headfirst into the dense forest that looked dangerous at a glance.

There was no path here at all.

Ahu and another team member had to hack their way through with machetes in front. Thorny vines tore their clothes and trousers, while unknown venomous insects buzzed around their ears.

Every step was exceptionally difficult.

The resentment in the team was almost solid enough to touch.

Han Yuchen remained unhurried.

In his eyes, the world around him was an entirely different sight.

The ever-present moisture in the air formed a three-dimensional, constantly updating map in his perception.

Where living creatures were, where plants were, where energy fluctuations lay—it was all as clear as searchlights in the night.

That supposedly "clean" trail displayed a strange, densely packed network of threadlike energy on his moisture map, like a gigantic web spread open and quietly awaiting prey.

The path they were currently taking, though difficult, was marked as a safe patch of green on the map.

They walked for roughly half an hour.

Everyone was exhausted and panting, too tired to even curse.

Then—

"Ahhh—!"

An utterly miserable scream suddenly rang out from their left rear.

It came from the direction of that "clean" path!

Every member of the Mengli Squad stiffened, their movements freezing instantly.

The scream lasted only a second before abruptly cutting off.

Then came a muffled boom of violently exploding Soul Power, followed by several indistinct roars and pleas for mercy.

Then—

Everything fell silent.

A dead silence.

Only the team members' heavy breathing remained in the forest.

Every face was filled with terror and lingering dread.

If...

If they had taken that path...

Hiss—!

Meng Li swallowed with difficulty, his Adam's apple bobbing.

He waved a hand, his voice dry. "Monkey, go... go take a look."

Monkey's face was deathly pale, his legs trembling, but he still gritted his teeth and crept toward it carefully.

Five minutes later, Monkey came scrambling back.

He collapsed onto the ground, pointed in that direction, his lips quivering so badly that he could barely form words.

"Dead... they're all dead... a five-man squad... they were... drained dry by some kind of vines..."

"Even their bones... were nearly melted away..."

Boom!

It was as though a thunderbolt had struck everyone's minds.

A bone-chilling cold surged from their tailbones straight to the crowns of their heads.

They all turned to look at the figure who had remained calm from beginning to end.

Fear, reverence, and a trace of disbelief filled their eyes.

Just as everyone's minds were reeling and they had yet to recover from their fright—

Han Yuchen, who was walking at the front, suddenly stopped.

He tilted his head slightly, and one of his ears seemed to twitch, as though listening for something.

Meng Li and the others immediately tensed, gripping their weapons tightly.

"Sir, what is it?"

They followed Han Yuchen's gaze. There was only an enormous ancient tree that would take three people to encircle, along with thick shrubs.

There was nothing there.

They could not sense even the slightest Soul Power fluctuation.

Han Yuchen did not answer.

He merely spoke lightly toward the apparently empty area behind and to the side. His voice was not loud, yet it carried clearly through the surroundings.

"You've been following us for fifteen minutes. Aren't you tired?"

"If you don't come out soon, your lunch is going to get away."

Meng Li and the others were completely dumbfounded.

Who was he talking to?

Was someone else here?

They frantically released their Soul Power to sense their surroundings, but the result was still utter emptiness.

Damn, these rookies' senses were barely better than a husky's.

On my moisture map, that thing is lying right there. The heat from its breath forms an unmistakable thermal anomaly.

Those sleek muscle lines, that suppressed heartbeat...

It stands out like a tractor with high beams on in the middle of the night.

Han Yuchen could not be bothered to waste more words.

He bent down and casually picked up a thumb-sized pebble from the ground.

Then he flicked it with a finger.

Whoosh!

The pebble cut through the air with an almost imperceptible whistle. Rather than flying toward any suspicious patch of grass, it seemed to head casually toward the trunk of that enormous ancient tree.

Pfft!

A soft sound rang out.

The instant the pebble struck the trunk—

Something bizarre happened!

The patch of bark that had been hit—and the air around it—rippled like water!

Immediately afterward, a sleek leopard over three meters long, its entire body covered in fur identical to the bark in both color and pattern, appeared out of thin air!

One of its claws was already raised, and its body was arched in a perfect curve. It was clearly poised to pounce from stealth and kill!

A Thousand-Year Soul Beast—the Shadow Leopard!

It was famous for supreme concealment and explosive assassination!

Everyone in the Mengli Squad felt their hearts skip a beat!

The Shadow Leopard was less than five meters from the last person in their group!

If its presence had not been exposed in advance, someone would have been disemboweled on the spot by that pounce!

Only then did Han Yuchen speak slowly in the face of their horrified stares, like a diligent teacher teaching a class of preschoolers.

"Its fur can distort light and block Soul Power detection. It is a master of disguise."

The Shadow Leopard stared fixedly at Han Yuchen.

It could not understand how its stealth talent, which it prided itself on and which allowed it to easily assassinate even Four-Thousand-Year Soul Beasts, had been seen through by a human who looked so frail.

From this human, it sensed a pressure so terrifying that its very soul trembled.

It was not suppression by Soul Power Level.

It was a... crushing superiority of life itself!

Like an ant gazing up at a meteor about to crash down upon it.

"Rrrowl..."

The Shadow Leopard let out a wary low growl. Its crouched body slowly backed away.

In the end, it gave Han Yuchen one deep look, twisted its massive body, and instantly melted into the shadows, disappearing without a trace.

A crisis that could have wiped out the entire group was effortlessly resolved with a single sentence and a single pebble.

The jungle returned to its deathly silence.

The Mengli Squad members remained frozen in their previous poses, as though petrified.

After a long while.

Meng Li slowly lowered the shield he had raised halfway. He walked up to Han Yuchen and bowed deeply, deeply.

This time, he did not call him "sir."

His voice carried a tremor and fervor that even he himself had not noticed.

"My lord, where... do we go next?"

At that moment, control of this hastily assembled team completely changed hands.