Jian Shao opened his eyes, the thunderous roar by his ears making it impossible for him to rest.
Eight days earlier, fiends spilling out from the mining area had turned the entire market into a sea of blood. In his extreme weakness, he had been dragged along by his companions as they fled for their lives. Yet by a twist of fate, they had entered the mining area, then been swept onward by the upheaval stirred up by the fiends. Mixed into the crowd, he had muddleheadedly arrived in this newly opened region.
In truth, this was not their first time here. Before he had fallen unconscious, the hunting party he belonged to had already reached this area and reaped considerable gains. Even while he had been unconscious, their exploration had never stopped. They had merely assigned three to five people to tend to him in the mining area, while also establishing channels to move and sell their spoils.
He had been a disciple of a small sect in the southern lands. Thirty years ago, the pillar holding up the sect—his grandmaster—had been slain by a powerful enemy, and the sect had scattered overnight. His master had fled to the Northern Wasteland with a dozen or so fellow disciples, using them as a foundation to establish this hunting party.
Because it had been built upon fellow disciples of the same sect, their hunting party possessed greater cohesion than its peers. Though their strength was mediocre, they had managed to struggle on for thirty years. But a year ago, his master, long trapped at the initial stage of Core Formation and unable to advance an inch, had finally died when his lifespan ran out. The hunting party's livelihood had grown difficult.
More importantly, after Fourth Martial Uncle took over as the