My Name Is Xia Hong, the Great Xia Leader Has Arrived

The following day, just as night fell, Shi Qing sought out Luo Ming to announce his departure.

The leaders of the five camps had reached a consensus to cooperate with Yang and Li one final time out in Redwood Ridge to see if they could lure out the wood puppet grotesque and successfully slay it at last.

Luo Ming had brought three practitioners from the earth excavation realm and twenty-five from the lumbering realm, while the other four camps had brought everything they possibly could. Compared to the previous four outings, everyone was clearly showing a far greater resolve.

Yet none of this mattered to Shi Qing anymore.

Big Stone Camp had suffered heavy losses; even with the heart to help, he simply had no men to spare.

After wishing everyone a successful hunt against the strange entity, Shi Qing took his younger brother, Shi Dong, and headed back toward Big Stone Camp via Redwood Ridge.

Tucked along for the ride was a bag of crystal fruit gifted by Luo Ming.

Interactions between the various camps were rare, so there were no established roads between them. People generally traveled along the outer fringes of Redwood Ridge.

Redwood Ridge was massive. To say that all these camps were located around Redwood Ridge was not entirely accurate; in truth, viewed as a whole, all nine camps were distributed solely along the eastern side of the ridge.

Rogue Camp lay directly to the east, while the positions of Big Stone and Great Xia were, strictly speaking, to the southeast, though Great Xia leaned a bit further south.

The territory occupied by each camp on the periphery of Redwood Ridge was roughly divided according to their geographical locations. Rogue Camp was the strongest, so naturally it occupied the largest area, stretching over two thousand meters from north to south.

The other eight camps each held only about five hundred meters.

South of Rogue Camp lay four camps in succession: Huang Zhao, Dachuan, Big Stone, and Great Xia. Therefore, heading out from Rogue Camp, entering Redwood Ridge, and continuing south for roughly three kilometers would bring one back into the territorial bounds of Big Stone Camp.

Anxious about the safety of the camp's three hundred-odd residents, Shi Qing hurried along at breakneck speed with Shi Dong. Three kilometers was not far to begin with, and the two quickly reached their own territory.

"Hoo... Finally made it, let's hurry back!"

Though still within Redwood Ridge, stepping onto their own soil allowed Shi Qing to relax quite a bit, though the thought of returning to inform the camp that they had lost three more brothers instantly weighed heavily on his heart.

Scarcely half a month had passed since the loss of eight brothers inside Great Xia's territory, and now three more were dead. Little more than three months ago, Big Stone Camp had boasted a full sixteen combatants in the lumbering realm, and back then he had even taken the initiative to propose hunting frost beasts.

In just a few short months, the drastic shift in circumstances felt like the difference between heaven and hell.

As Shi Qing walked, he suddenly glanced back at the bag on Shi Dong's back.

"Second brother, wait."

Hearing the call, Shi Dong halted his steps and looked at him in puzzlement.

Shi Qing reached out to take the bag from his back, weighed it a few times, and frowned slightly. "It's been over half a month; they've definitely finished all the crystal fruit left in the camp last time. There's only a little over a thousand catties in this bag, which probably won't be enough to take back. Let's head over to the ice vast trees first and see if we can pick a bit more."

Shi Dong nodded and stood rooted to the spot. Only when Shi Qing took the lead and headed toward the ice vast trees did he follow behind.

As the camp leader, Shi Qing knew the locations of the six ice vast trees on his territory like the back of his hand, and he quickly arrived at the edge of the nearest one.

Yet when they were still more than thirty meters away from that ice vast tree, his expression suddenly shifted, and he grabbed Shi Dong beside him, quickly dodging behind a nearby tree.

"Someone has broken in!"

Shi Dong had also noticed it by then, and the two of them looked over together.

Sure enough, up in that ice vast tree, two young men were holding bags and picking crystal fruit to their heart's content, while three others stood guard below—a total of five people.

After carefully scrutinizing the appearances of the five, Shi Qing's face registered shock before instantly turning into confusion.

"So young. Which camp are these people from?"

Being able to venture out at night meant they undoubtedly possessed the strength of the lumbering realm.

The problem was that these five youths looked at most around twenty years old.

Even Rogue Camp probably couldn't produce five lumbering realm youths this young.

Could it be that they came from other large or even giant camps?

No, that couldn't be right.

Shi Qing quickly dismissed this guess.

Because all six of them were wearing ordinary animal-skin skirts.

"Those five are people from Great Xia Camp."

Shi Dong, standing beside him, suddenly spoke up at that moment.

Shi Qing froze upon hearing this, a trace of dread instantly surging into his heart. The way he looked at the five youths changed in an instant.

You mean those five might be...

Shi Dong said nothing, merely giving him a gentle nod.

Shi Qing swallowed hard, his heart skipping a beat as his movements instantly grew stealthy, terrified of making a sound and alerting the five people over there.

He hadn't forgotten that Xia Ding's group was supposed to be completely dead.

For any camp, if everyone in the lumber team died off, the remaining people in the camp essentially had no path to survival.

Therefore, before going to Rogue Camp, Shi Qing had been certain that the people of Great Xia Camp had either starved to death entirely or fallen victim to strange entities long ago.

The scene before his eyes clearly gave him the answer.

Strange entities!

Right, that had to be it—they were definitely controlled by strange entities.

Otherwise, how could there be such young practitioners in the lumbering realm, and five of them all at once?

"Keep it down, don't alarm them, let's go!"

Hearing Shi Qing's signal, Shi Dong nodded, a gloomy hue flashing in his eyes.

The two of them retreated stealthily, quickly covering twenty to thirty meters.

Only then did Shi Qing let out a breath, turning around and preparing to head toward Tower Mountain.

"Stone Leader, where might the two of you be headed?"

Yet a slightly mocking voice suddenly rang out from right in front of them, causing the expressions of Shi Qing and Shi Dong to instantly stiffen.

The two looked up and saw a robust young man holding a stone axe, standing on a large tree five meters ahead and watching them.

The young man's voice was not quiet, and the five people in the back who had been picking crystal fruit immediately stopped upon hearing it, all running over.

Nor was that all; on both the left and right sides, two more people emerged and closed in as well.

Surrounded by ten people in the span of a breath, Shi Qing's face was instantly flooded with despair.

Ten strange entities—there was simply no way he and Shi Dong could possibly handle them.

"Leader Xia, picking crystal fruit is one thing, but do you still want to kill people?"

Yet at that moment, Shi Dong suddenly spoke up.

Shi Qing wore a dazed expression, looking up at the robust young man on the tree. A trace of familiarity flashed in his eyes as he asked in an uncertain tone, "Are you Old Ding's son?"

Xia Hong stretched lazily, leaping down from the tree without causing the snow beneath his feet to sink in the slightest, and walked slowly over to stand before Shi Qing.

"That's right, my name is Xia Hong, the current leader of Great Xia!"

Not strange entities?

Shi Qing abruptly realized this, and the relief of surviving a disaster instantly made him beam with joy, though the smile on his face lasted only a moment before being replaced once more by shock.

"You're all in the lumbering realm?"

Xia Hong didn't speak, but Yuan Cheng and Xia Chuan on either side, along with the other seven including Yue Feng and Lin Kai, all couldn't help letting out soft chuckles.

Being young, upon hearing the shock in Shi Qing's tone, they naturally couldn't help feeling a bit pleased with themselves. Xia Chuan and Yuan Cheng in particular held quite a bit of resentment toward Big Stone Camp, given that the other party had crossed over into Great Xia's territory twice before.

Naturally, Xia Hong wouldn't get carried away over such a minor matter; his mind was entirely focused on the shift in Shi Qing's facial expressions just moments ago.

The way Shi Qing had gone from despair upon seeing him to joy once Shi Dong called out his identity—that change left him rather curious.

This curiosity even made him forget that his original intention in blocking the two of them was to settle the score from a short time ago and teach Big Stone Camp a lesson.

"Leader Xia, I haven't been back to the camp in a long time and need to head back first. When you have time to visit Redwood Ridge, we can gather again, how about it?"

However, Shi Qing clearly had no intention of satisfying his curiosity.