Protagonist?

Green lowered his head and bent at the waist, quietly sensing the energy fluctuations from an extremely distant place.

Over the course of a day, after circling the entire secret realm on a large scale, Green had confirmed two things.

First, this secret realm had seven places with energy fluctuations in all, which seemed to represent seven entrance trigger devices.

Second, the seven Desperators, in four directions, were constantly killing any other wizard apprentices who dared approach.

Green did not understand why these seven Desperators did not enter the secret realm directly, but instead wasted so much time stopping other wizard apprentices.

Was it only to plunder a few more mark points?

On the first day, aside from a very small number of blind wizard apprentices who sent themselves straight to their deaths, most wizard apprentices with a bit of confidence in themselves chose to lie low in the distance and wait for a better opportunity. Quite a few also wisely chose to give up.

The position Green chose to lie low in now was, among the four directions with Desperators he had found over the past day, the relatively weakest one.

As for the other three places, the terrifying mark fluctuation radiating from one Desperator had actually reached a horrifying level of over one hundred points, while the other two places had gathered two and three Desperators respectively. Only the Desperator guarding this place seemed, relatively speaking, to be the weakest guard.

It seemed most of the other wizard apprentices held much the same thoughts as Green, choosing to lie low in this direction and wait for an opportunity.

Green was like an extremely patient hunter. He simply took out an Earth Bud seed, let himself hide underground, and completely concealed himself.

On the second day, seven or eight people in this direction, scattered here and there, could no longer hold back and rushed toward the distant secret realm. In the end, they all let out miserable screams.

On the third day, two wizard apprentices formed a team and charged toward the Desperator guarding this direction. At the final moment, they actually detonated a Flame Fusion Pearl. Vast, surging fire elemental power swept across a large stretch of sky, and under cover of that fiery might, one wizard apprentice escaped death by a hair.

On the fourth day, perhaps influenced by the previous day's Flame Fusion Pearl, many wizard apprentices believed the guardian here had to be injured, so they launched assaults one after another. In the end, terrified screams rang out one after another.

On the fifth day, no wizard apprentice dared attack the secret realm anymore. It seemed all the wizard apprentices had left because of despair.

However, under the previous wizard apprentices who had "gone to their deaths" one after another, the Desperator in this direction had actually erupted with an even more terrifying mark fluctuation. This was the sign that their mark value had reached one hundred.

At this moment, six corpses were piled in front of Green. They were all bodies Green had collected over these days.

For one thing, Green wanted to use these corpses to investigate the wizardry abilities of the Desperator guarding this direction. For another, the Phantom Wasp mother insect Green had obtained from Wizard Lianyi required a large number of corpses to cultivate.

After a moment of silence, Green finally decided that no matter what, he had to go test things out. If this Desperator was truly impossible to withstand, it would not be too late to retreat then.

Thinking this, Green no longer hesitated. He took a bottle from the cloth pouch at his waist and gently opened the stopper. Instantly, the black insects inside the bottle desperately burrowed into the corpses on the ground.

Through the ways these six corpses had died, Green also gained some preliminary understanding of the wizardry methods of that Desperator in the far distance.

First of all, this Desperator had to be someone extremely strong in earth elemental and wood elemental wizardry. This could be seen from the fact that, among the six people, fully five had died to those two types of elemental wizardry, earth and wood.

Second, this Desperator also seemed to have considerable research in poison-casting arts. Although only one wizard apprentice had died from poisoning, Green simply could not distinguish the specific poison that wizard apprentice had been afflicted with.

The only thing Green could be glad about was that because of his research into pharmaceutics, he was carrying a full two bottles of potent antidote.

Of the two bottles of potent antidote, one had a powerful decomposition effect on plant-secreted deadly poisons, while the other promoted the expulsion of many metal-element deadly poisons. As for certain deadly poisons refined from animal bodies, Green had two bottles of weak conventional antidotes he had mixed himself.

One hourglass later.

Along with a rustling, low buzzing sound, the six corpses became six skeletons. At the same time, a giant Phantom Wasp monster three meters long appeared in front of Green.

At first glance, this giant Phantom Wasp had six pitch-black segmented legs, two powerful purplish-red chelicerae, a glossy black carapace on its back dotted sporadically with purple spots, and two pairs of short gray-black wings. Everything about it seemed to be an enlarged version of a Phantom Wasp.

But on closer inspection, this so-called giant Phantom Wasp was actually formed from thousands upon thousands of densely packed small Phantom Wasps. It looked quite terrifying.

Green had a direct spiritual connection with this giant Phantom Wasp's core mother insect. Therefore, this giant Phantom Wasp was indirectly equivalent to Green's soul slave, though this soul slave only had a lifespan of one day.

After making these preparations, Green took the giant Phantom Wasp and walked toward the secret realm without hesitation.

A moment later, Green suddenly stopped. The giant Phantom Wasp, meanwhile, kept flapping its wings, its two pincers awe-inspiring as it quietly stood behind Green like a loyal monster guard.

Under the ultrasonic wizardry of Green's Pale Mask, a black-and-white image appeared in his mind. The image pierced through layer after layer of trees and grass within fifteen meters, yet failed to find any trace of anyone. And yet Green's Hunting Nose caught a "familiar" scent, as if, during the previous trial period, he had once been secretly followed by this person.

"Come out, Your Excellency Ghost Thief Desperator."

Beneath the Pale Mask, Green stood motionless with his arms crossed over his shoulders and spoke coldly.

Through his analysis of the intelligence from the past few days, Green was already very certain that the Desperator guarding this direction was, eight or nine times out of ten, that mysterious Ghost Thief.

"Heh heh, actually, I've always been very curious. How exactly did you discover me?"

Along with a somewhat demonic voice, the upper half of a wizard apprentice slowly drilled out of the soil about twenty-five meters to Green's left. This person propped his chin on both hands, a leaf held in the corner of his mouth, and looked at Green curiously. His manner, however, seemed somewhat lazy and bored.

Green looked at this Desperator's manner of not putting him in his eyes at all. Beneath the Pale Mask, his eyes narrowed slightly. The giant Phantom Wasp behind him actually blurred, and in the next instant, it charged to Ghost Thief's front. With a boom, large amounts of soil flew everywhere.

By visual estimation, this giant Phantom Wasp's attack strength was roughly between 20 and 60 degrees. Moreover, because of the trait that as long as the mother insect did not die, the body would not perish, its combat power was probably even stronger than Yorkris's.

"Do you have to be so unfriendly? Maybe you still don't know, but right now, you're the real protagonist of the entire trial ground. Heh heh heh heh..."

Ghost Thief's body emerged again from the trunk of a tree more than ten meters to Green's right, appearing and disappearing like a god or ghost.

Green remained unmoved. A blazing fireball transformed into a firebird and flew nimbly toward Ghost Thief. A moment later, with a boom, waves of fire scattered in all directions.

"Forget it, I'm not playing with you anymore. Let those fellows decide."

Ghost Thief's figure appeared again on a steep cliff slope more than forty meters in front of Green. With a helpless look on his face, he actually shouted directly toward the sky in the far distance, "The Pale Mask has appeared over here with me..."

Ghost Thief's voice was emitted at some specific frequency, and it actually let the other Desperators at least a thousand meters away hear it clearly.

Green's expression changed. He did not know exactly what this Ghost Thief intended to do, but his instincts sensed something bad. Without even thinking, he directly summoned a wind elemental bat, leaped onto it, and tried to withdraw.

Pfft!

A wooden spear shot through the wind elemental bat beneath Green. At the same time, the wooden spear instantly grew densely packed branches and thorns. The wind elemental bat let out a silent wail and dissipated in midair.

Ghost Thief drilled half his body out of a tree trunk not far from where Green had fallen to the ground. His extraordinarily long tongue seemed somewhat excited as it licked the sweat from his forehead, and he gave a strange laugh. "Heh heh, you can't run. You'd better cooperate in putting on a good show in a little while."

Green's expression turned rather ugly, and he said coldly, "What do you mean?"

"Hmm? I treated you like this, and you actually didn't curse me out. I'm so sad, heheh..."

Ghost Thief ignored Green and muttered to himself.

In the distant sky, the mechanical tail behind Mechanical Heart had already returned to normal, lifting energetically. At that moment, hearing Ghost Thief's voice carry over from afar, he could not help turning his head to look.

"Heehee, Victor, that Pale Mask has come. Should we go join the fun?"

Beside Mechanical Heart, a female wizard apprentice with a devilishly bewitching figure and an angelically beautiful face spoke with a seductive smile.

This strangely beautiful woman was none other than Cletia, codenamed Enchantment, one of the seven Despairers.

Her long red-and-green dress was patterned with eerie red scorpions. On one hand, the gown half-concealed and half-revealed Cletia's private places; on the other, it made the exaggerated, alluring curves of her lithe body stand out all the more.

A glittering golden mysterious necklace on her snow-white chest slid down into the gap between two towering peaks, drawing the eye and stirring endless reverie. Her face carried a tone full of enchantment, yet perversely wore an expression of holy inviolability. She truly was a tempting little demon!

Mechanical Heart Victor cursed inwardly, man-eating demoness, and did not look at her again. He knew that beneath Cletia's beautiful face was, in truth, a heart of snakes and scorpions.

"Hmph. Although I do want to go get some revenge, those two sides are fighting so fiercely that I'd rather not wade into these muddy waters."

After hesitating for a moment, Mechanical Heart Victor said this.

"Ah... what a pity. Forget it. Since you're not going, I won't go either."

As she spoke, Cletia stopped the golden ring spinning around her index finger. Her flaming red lips lightly bit her fingertip, and in an alluring voice she murmured, "Mm-hmm, I wonder if that fellow can withstand the might of the Son of the Sun. That madwoman is absurdly strong."

After Cletia finished speaking, she slowly spat out a red venomous scorpion with two pairs of transparent wings. It landed on her fingertip, and Cletia whispered, "Go over there and help Mommy scout out the situation."

With that, the scorpion flashed into the air and vanished.

In the distant sky, majestic mark fluctuations accompanied blazing flames as the Son of the Sun carried an aura that would burn all things to extinction and crushed toward the distance, as if she meant to destroy everything blocking her path. Her target was directly aimed at Green, who had already been locked on to!

On the other side, Black Isotta Tower Solam, Yun Li, and Bibilionna, each at different speeds, also charged toward Green without yielding an inch.

The two sides seemed to want to use Green as the origin point and begin a needle-point clash to the death!