Intrusion

The forests outside Moonview Valley are becoming increasingly dense with the presence of human presence.

The scattered survivors, cautiously nibbling away along the edge of the forest, groped their way through the cracks in the terrain. Eventually, a group of them followed the cliff path and arrived at the entrance of Moonview Valley.

The entire edge of the Frost Forest is open to entry and exploration.

This valley entrance, however, is completely different.

The moment their feet touched the edge of the valley, the Wristband their wrists suddenly lit up with a cold light.

A simple, cold message pops up abruptly in the center of the screen.

[Access denied.]

Those five short words instantly stopped everyone in their tracks.

The dozen or so outsiders who had come to seek survival, gathered at the entrance of the valley, were all frozen in place.

Everyone looked bewildered, their hearts filled with confusion.

Since they landed on this Main Plane, they have traversed wastelands, crossed hills, explored shallows, and stayed close to the edges of forests.

They have encountered ferocious beasts, ventured into dangerous places, and traversed the territories of mutated creatures.

Dangers may be great or small, and deaths and injuries may occur from time to time, but there is never a single piece of land that will display a "no entry" message.

This was the first time anyone had encountered such a bizarre rule.

Some people repeatedly swipe the Wristband, trying to find out the ownership of the territory, the source of the ban, and the reason for the restriction.

The Wristband's interface was completely silent; apart from the fixed prompt, there was no explanation, no supplementary information, and no searchable entries.

There is absolutely no solution.

Someone in the crowd couldn't resist opening the public channel and sending several messages, asking if anyone else in the Global Region had encountered the same restricted area.

Messages flooded my screen one after another.

All replies were identical.

No one has ever seen it.

Nobody has ever heard of it.

No one knows why Moonview Valley has system-level access restrictions.

The more unknown something is, the more obstacles there are, the more rampant the curiosity and wishful thinking in people's hearts become.

In a post-apocalyptic world, where no man's land is everywhere, survival is at stake.

Everyone assumes that wherever humans can go, they can enter, explore, and plunder resources.

This valley, which was forcibly locked away, seemed to hold the most precious resources of the entire forest.

More and more people gathered at the mouth of the valley.

The solo survivors, who were originally scattered and exploring, were drawn together by this unusual restriction and inadvertently gathered in one place.

Among the crowd, two men with stubborn personalities and a natural penchant for confrontation could no longer contain themselves.

"What permission restrictions? It's just a gimmick."

"Why can't we enter this area that nobody cares about?"

Ignoring the subtle advice of those around them and disregarding the unknown risks, the two stepped directly across the invisible barrier at the valley entrance, determined to force their way deeper.

Everyone else stopped on the outside, holding their breath and watching.

The valley was eerily quiet.

There was no wind, no animal roars, and no unusual movement.

But only a few seconds later...

From deep within the valley, the low hum of machinery suddenly emanated.

The silent patrolling Heavy Anvil slid out from its concealed bunker on the cliff face. A single unit locked onto the intruder and suddenly accelerated into a sprint.

There was no warning, no probing.

A sharp, metallic whistling sound suddenly rang out.

Immediately afterwards, two short, shrill screams, too brief to fully utter, ripped through the silence of the mountain forest.

The sound vanished completely in a fleeting instant.

Everyone outside the valley felt a chill run down their spines, and their scalps tingled instantly.

No one could see what happened inside.

All that could be heard were screams; then, not a sound.

The crowd, who had initially been itching to join in and test the waters, instantly lost their composure.

All tentative exploration, all wishful thinking, all curiosity were instantly extinguished by extreme fear.

No one dared to linger any longer. They retreated rapidly, their nerves on edge, on high alert. They scanned their surroundings as they quickly withdrew from the cliff area.

They were fortunate enough.

They stopped at the mouth of the valley, never actually stepping into the valley floor.

From the high platform of the Fortress, Lu Heng coldly surveyed the fleeing crowd below.

His eyes remained completely expressionless.

If this group had dared to flood into the valley, he had planned to personally clean it up.

Human nature is the most complex and the most greedy thing ever.

Today, this group of people were just curious and testing the waters.

But once outsiders know that this perfect Shelter, this territory that belongs solely to him, truly exists...

This will inevitably lead to a continuous stream of troubles.

A beggar using moral blackmail, a greedy person coveting resources, and an ambitious person who wants to band together to seize valuable land.

All sorts of people will stick to the vicinity of Moonview Valley like an indelible plaster.

The Heavy Anvil solved his immediate problem and saved him the trouble of doing it himself.

But Lu Heng knew that this was just the beginning.

The survivors below, still shaken, fled hastily along the forest path, eager to get away from that eerie dead zone.

On the way back, the terrain suddenly darkened.

The wind suddenly stopped blowing through the woods ahead.

The entire forest became eerily quiet in an instant.

Pairs of eerie green pupils slowly lit up in the shadows of the dense forest.

Wolf Pack.

The territory of wild Wolf Pack at the edge of the entire Frost Forest happened to lie across their only escape route.

Dozens of wolves crouched low, baring their fangs and taut their muscles, ready to pounce on any strangers who dared to intrude into their territory.

The Wolf King stood at the forefront, its size far exceeding that of an ordinary wolf, its mane standing on end, its ferocious beastly nature locked firmly on the group of humans before it.

The survivors who were trying to escape were instantly frozen in place.

My heart pounded, and my hands and feet felt icy cold.

Having just escaped death from a forbidden area, they immediately ran into the fiercest pack of wild Wolf Pack in the entire forest.

Everyone instinctively gripped their weapons, preparing for a bloody battle and a desperate breakout.

But the next second, a bizarre scene unfolded.

The Wolf King stared at the group of people, sniffing the scent wafting through the air.

The clothes and skin of this group of people carried a faint scent from Moonview Valley — Lu Heng's scent.

In the Wolf King's mind, the one in the valley was an existence it could not offend. When the group of people came out from the direction of the valley with that aura, the Wolf King subconsciously judged that they had been given permission to leave that territory.

It lowered its head slightly, and a deep, restrained growl rolled out from deep in its throat.

This low growl was neither an attack nor a threat.

It's suppression.

Instantly, all the Wolf Pack that were poised to pounce stopped in their tracks, their tense bodies slowly relaxing, and they halted their forward momentum.

The survivors, clutching their weapons, stood frozen in place, too afraid to move or utter a sound. The anticipated bloody battle never materialized.

As they backed away, someone in the crowd muttered under their breath.

"Could it be... that the creatures in the valley are the same kind as us?"

The other person next to him immediately sneered and retorted in a low voice.

"What kind of 'kin' are you? When they killed those two people inside, they were swift and decisive, showing no mercy whatsoever. If they truly considered us as their own kind, how could they have been so ruthless?"

No one could explain the strange occurrence before their eyes.

The Wolf Pack stood silently in the woods, neither pursuing nor making way, but simply watching them.

The survivors held their breath, inching closer to the edge of the woodland, carefully avoiding the Wolf Pack, daring not to do anything that might provoke them.

The only sounds in the forest were the heavy panting of wolves and the suppressed footsteps of the group.

The news will spread with them.

Moonview Valley, a place with restricted access, an unknown entity capable of delivering a fatal blow, and a territory where even wild beasts give way.

The probing on the outskirts of the Frost Forest has cast another lingering shadow.