Barrier Spell

Although the Zombie Rat had been killed, the students all looked grim.

Wu Xiaoyan helped Zhou Yi treat his wound with an antidote.

Xiao Jinsheng crouched before the Zombie Rat's corpse and examined it carefully. Jiang Wen and Bai Xiaowen stood beside him.

"This Plague Rat is much stronger than ordinary ones, especially in agility and defense. Those two aspects have nearly doubled," Xiao Jinsheng said with a frown. "Most importantly, this berserk style of attack is nothing like that of a normal Plague Rat."

They had only managed to kill it thanks to the Rusty Iron Sword in Xiao Jinsheng's hand.

This Rusty Iron Sword was psionic equipment. It looked cheap, but its destructive power far surpassed that of weapons forged from refined steel. It had split the Zombie Rat with Stiffened Skin in two with a single blow.

Xiao Jinsheng turned over the Zombie Rat's head. Under the searchlight, they could clearly see that its eyes had turned white, while the hairless skin around its mouth carried a sickly, deathly pallor.

"It was probably affected by something and mutated," Bai Xiaowen said after coughing once.

"A secondary mutation?" Xiao Jinsheng's brows knitted tightly. He rose to his feet and looked deeper into the pitch-black Plague Rat Burrow.

"If the cave is full of monsters with secondary mutations like this, we can't go any deeper."

The flesh on Xiao Jinsheng's face quivered slightly as he said solemnly, "I'll report what happened here to the school and ask them to send Awakened ones to handle it."

Zhou Yi had finished bandaging his wound, but he shouted unwillingly, "Is that really necessary? That rat wasn't all that strong. It ambushed me this time, and I didn't know what it could do. If I run into another one, I'll definitely take it down."

Bai Xiaowen gave a derisive snort.

Xiao Jinsheng shook his head. "Even if you can kill one in a one-on-one fight, what does that prove? Conservatively speaking, there are hundreds of Plague Rats in this burrow, and they often appear in groups. Once there are more than three, our team will definitely suffer casualties."

Zhou Yi fell silent. He merely glared fiercely at Bai Xiaowen, feeling humiliated by the mockery.

"Teacher, should we head back? Only one day of the week-long practical combat training has passed. We can still train in another area," Bai Xiaowen said, completely ignoring Zhou Yi.

"Fine."

The five had arrived in high spirits and left in disappointment, retracing their route.

When they reached the cave entrance, Jiang Wen, who was at the front, suddenly cried out, "Why is there light?"

The others stepped forward to look, and their hearts skipped a beat. A hazy, milky-white glow now covered the original entrance, looking especially eerie in the dark night.

Zhou Yi tried taking two steps forward, and his expression changed. "Teacher Xiao, we can't get through here!"

"How is that possible?" Xiao Jinsheng's expression changed abruptly, and he hurried forward.

The hazy white light seemed like an invisible barrier blocking the entrance. No matter how hard they tried, they could not pass through the curtain of light or move forward even an inch.

"What is going on?" Zhou Yi felt unbelievably unlucky. Strange things had been happening since the start of this field combat training; nothing had gone smoothly.

"This is a type of barrier spell."

Xiao Jinsheng let out a breath and said slowly, "Someone cast a barrier over the entrance. Until the psionic energy in the barrier dissipates, we can't get out."

"Who did this? Why would they do this?" Jiang Wen asked fearfully.

"I don't know either, but they probably mean us no good, and they're powerful!" Xiao Jinsheng said. "Anyone capable of casting spells must be at the Awakened level. We can't deal with them."

"Then what do we do?" Zhou Yi cried. "Ask the school for help, Teacher Xiao! We can't die here."

"I'll send out a distress signal now. But even if the Awakened sent by the school leave immediately, it will still take some time for them to arrive. During that time, everyone hide and turn off your searchlights. Whatever you do, don't draw the enemy's attention."

Xiao Jinsheng directly classified the person who had cast the barrier as an enemy, then led the four students deeper into the Plague Rat Burrow in the dark.

Bai Xiaowen frowned slightly, feeling that something was off. He did not believe an enemy with the strength of an Awakened would target a group like theirs.

Thinking of the Insight information on the Zombie Rat, Bai Xiaowen considered a possibility.

"Teacher Xiao, I think... that person probably isn't here for us."

Bai Xiaowen quickened his pace and came to Xiao Jinsheng's side. "If the enemy were after us, there would have been no need to go to so much trouble. They had plenty of chances along the way."

Xiao Jinsheng frowned. "If they aren't here for us, what are they doing in a cave in this godforsaken Buffer Zone?"

"I'm guessing it has something to do with the unusual Transformation in the Plague Rat Burrow," Bai Xiaowen said clearly. "Why have the Plague Rats changed so drastically? If some treasure can mutate every Plague Rat in the entire cave, it must be something extraordinary—something that would make even Awakened ones jealous. And don't you think the stones blocking the entrance were strange? They looked more like they were placed there by people, not by Plague Rats."

"You mean an Awakened discovered something unusual here and came to investigate?" Xiao Jinsheng frowned. "But why would they seal off the entrance as well?"

"When they saw that the stones at the entrance had been moved and noticed the footprints there, they must have guessed that we had entered the cave before them and hadn't left yet. To stop us from obtaining the treasure and taking it away, they sealed the cave."

Bai Xiaowen's analysis was logical and well-supported. Only then did Xiao Jinsheng also feel that the stones blocking the entrance were indeed very strange.

"What should we do, then?" Xiao Jinsheng asked.

"Since they aren't here for us, shouldn't we just return to the entrance and wait for rescue?" Wu Xiaoyan said softly.

Bai Xiaowen shook his head. "We should still follow Teacher Xiao's plan and hide first, doing our best not to be discovered. According to Teacher Xiao, they have the strength of an Awakened. Killing the five of us would be very easy for them. I can't rule out the possibility that, after obtaining the treasure, they might kill us as well to silence us..."

"Hmph. After all that analysis, you're still just saying we should hide, no different from what Teacher Xiao said," Zhou Yi said disdainfully.

"Enough, Zhou Yi. At the very least, Bai Xiaowen's analysis has given us a better understanding of the situation, so we won't panic so badly."

Xiao Jinsheng steadied himself and said after some thought, "Right now, we can't run around like headless flies. Let's find a secluded place to hide first, so we don't run into that person... It would be best if we could leave each other alone."

The five advanced quietly. At a fork in the underground tunnels, they chose a narrow, secluded passage.

After walking more than a hundred meters and turning two corners, the space before them suddenly opened up, and they entered an underground chamber.

The chamber was about ten meters square and fairly spacious. After arriving there, everyone relaxed slightly.

Zhou Yi cursed under his breath, "These damned rats are really good at digging. What's the point of digging such a huge underground chamber?"

Bai Xiaowen switched on his searchlight and carefully inspected the chamber.

"What are you doing? Turn off the light!" Zhou Yi growled softly.

Using the light, Bai Xiaowen touched the chamber wall. His expression changed slightly. "This is bad. We need to get out of here—now!"