The Legendary Figure, Luo Feng

The Legendary Figure—Luo Feng

Speaking of the Redwood Ridge area, no one enjoyed a bigger reputation than Luo Feng.

The reason was simple: before him, not a single Earth Excavation Realm powerhouse or medium-sized camp existed anywhere around Redwood Ridge.

In its early days, Redwood Ridge contained a total of sixteen small camps.

Twenty years ago, Luo Feng broke through to the Earth Excavation Realm, becoming the first powerhouse nearby qualified to hunt. He subsequently led Rogue Camp to continuous growth and prosperity, and soon two other camps that could no longer hold on actively proposed to merge.

By standard logic, other camps asking to merge should be a good thing since strength lies in numbers, but the reality proved quite different.

With ample resources, everyone knew to expand their population and elevate the overall strength of their camp. Yet for the gasping, dying small camps surrounding Redwood Ridge, ample resources remained a distant dream.

Luo Feng had just broken through at that time, and Rogue Camp's own people were still crying out for food, waiting for Luo Feng to bring back Frost Beasts so more individuals could break through to the Lumbering Realm. How could he possibly agree to let other camps merge?

Even the smallest camp had at least one or two hundred people; once integrated, that meant three or four hundred more mouths to feed.

No one believed Luo Feng would agree to let those two camps merge, and even if he personally agreed, the rest of Rogue Camp would never allow it.

Yet the result was that Luo Feng defied all opposition and accepted those two camps.

Those two camps could no longer hold on anyway, combining for only six Lumbering Realm combatants while the remaining three hundred plus people possessed zero cultivation. Everyone thought Luo Feng suffered from an excess of saintly compassion, completely disregarding his own camp's situation.

Rogue Camp, experiencing a sudden population explosion, surely could not last long.

Yet they were wrong again. Rogue Camp not only survived quite well, but Lumbering Realm combatants kept sprouting up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, surging from just over ten to thirty in the span of a few short years.

It was not just strength. Mining coal, opening up iron ore, Rogue Camp pulled far ahead of the surrounding camps at an unimaginable speed. Eventually, they even produced a new Earth Excavation Realm powerhouse.

Seeing Rogue Camp flourishing and living better and better, nearly all camp leaders proactively proposed a merger.

During Luo Feng's tenure alone, he incorporated a total of five camps, which amounted to nearly a thousand people. From this, one could see how fast Rogue Camp's strength grew during the years he served as leader.

Without exaggeration, everyone unanimously believed at the time that Luo Feng would surely integrate all of humanity around Redwood Ridge, forging Rogue Camp into a large or even gigantic camp.

The remaining eleven camps back then were also just waiting for Rogue Camp's resources to become abundant enough to take in more people so they could merge directly.

It was a pity that an accident not only ended Luo Feng's legend, but completely shattered all hopes of integrating the camps around Redwood Ridge.

Fifteen years ago, the hunting team led by Luo Feng encountered grotesques, and all the hunting team members died. After escaping death alone, for some reason he killed his own youngest son and went mad.

A legendary generation thus fell, and back then, not a single person failed to heave a sigh of regret.

What they lamented was not just Luo Feng's downfall; more importantly, the hope of merging into Rogue Camp vanished.

Reality met everyone's expectations as well. After Luo Ming succeeded to the position of leader, although his development was respectable, he clearly lagged behind Luo Feng by more than just one grade.

Over these past fifteen years, only two camps that truly could not hold on and had populations of just over a hundred successfully merged into Rogue Camp.

Whenever other camps wanted to merge in, Luo Ming refused them all across the board.

Not only did he refuse, but a few years ago, he purposely summoned the leaders of eight camps to demarcate everyone's territory on the outer fringes of Redwood Ridge, warning all camps not to cross boundaries and to search for resources only within their own turf.

Luo Ming's actions served two purposes: on one hand, to leave a path to survival for the weaker camps, and on the other, to sever those camps' thoughts of wanting to merge into Rogue Camp.

If expanding a camp's population base were possible, no one would be foolish enough to refuse. Everyone understood that the reason Luo Ming did this was because Rogue Camp's rate of development was no longer sufficient to support population expansion.

Both in character and in his actions, Luo Ming enjoyed universal praise. As the leader of Rogue Camp, his various measures over the years had won the support of nearly all the surrounding camps.

Yet people feared comparison. With Luo Feng's jade-like perfection preceding him, no matter how well Luo Ming performed, people always felt something was lacking.

In an instant, a flood of thoughts regarding Luo Feng surfaced in Shi Qing's mind.

To tell the truth, even now he regarded Luo Feng as an idol, and in his early years had imagined countless times how wonderful it would be if they could merge into Rogue Camp and fight side by side with his idol.

If it were not inappropriate, Shi Qing really wanted to ask whether Luo Feng had truly gone mad and if he could go pay him a visit.

Seeing that Luo Ming had already taken the lead in walking into the wooden house, Shi Qing stopped pondering and hurriedly led Shi Dong behind him as they walked inside.

Before entering the wooden house, his younger brother Shi Dong, walking beside him, slowly turned his head and cast a lingering glance at that small wooden cabin.

Unlike its exterior appearance as a mere square wooden box, the interior of the wooden house held another world entirely.

As soon as everyone stepped inside, a wave of heat washed over their faces, and calling it warm as spring was no exaggeration, forming a sharp contrast with the freezing cold outside.

Within a space fifty or sixty meters wide, a giant stone-piled hearth five or six meters in diameter sat right in the center. Coal burned fiercely inside the furnace, with a smoke exhaust pipe leading upward from the top.

The left and right sides were partitioned with wooden boards into individual rooms, some of which still had people living inside, sending out the sound of conversation.

Behind the hearth lay the main hall, furnished with dozens of wooden chairs draped with animal skins. Just this item alone was enough to outshine all the other camps around Redwood Ridge.

It was not that making chairs was so difficult; rather, this indicated that Rogue Camp lacked neither timber nor animal skins, something other camps could not achieve.

This was not the group's first time here, and they familiarly followed Luo Ming to the main hall, finding their seats.

Yang Ning and Li Hu walked straight up to the head of the room, taking the main seats.

Luo Ming, the camp leader, sat in the third seat instead.

The two adults Yang and Li naturally possessed the highest strength, and dealing with grotesques relied primarily on the pair of them. For the past half month, the seating arrangement had remained this way, so naturally no one raised any objections.

Seeing that everyone remained silent after taking their seats, Luo Ming glanced at Yang and Li, then stood up first.

"Camp Leader Shi has resolved to leave, and Big Stone Camp truly can't afford any more turmoil right now. If the two of them meet with misfortune as well, the camp's several hundred people really won't be able to survive, so I cannot bring myself to stop them any longer!"

Hearing these words, Shi Qing cupped his fists at him in grateful acknowledgment.

Luo Ming nodded in acknowledgment, then looked toward Hong Gang and the other three, continuing, "Four camp leaders, Luo Ming won't try to persuade you much further. We truly cannot handle that Wood Puppet Grotesque relying on our group alone.

Once the two adults leave, every single one of our camps is doomed.

Whether you leave or stay, think it through yourselves. I, Luo, will never obstruct you.

There is one thing, however, that I must make clear in advance.

If your four camps also choose to withdraw, then I can only respectfully send off the two adults. Relying on Rogue Camp alone to resolve that grotesque is definitely unrealistic."

After finishing this long speech, Luo Ming fell silent for a moment, then continued:

"If forced to absolute extremities, I can only take the camp's people and flee elsewhere to seek another path for survival!"

As Luo Ming's voice fell, the expressions of Hong Gang and the other three instantly changed.