Everyone walked up to the small building.
It was a self-built country house of a style common in the old era.
Most of the tiles on its exterior walls had long since fallen away.
The dull gray cement underneath was exposed.
Surprisingly, though, its main structure still looked reasonably intact.
It had not collapsed completely like the other buildings around it.
"This house... it's been decades, and it still hasn't collapsed?"
Chen Gu murmured in surprise.
A sniper's instincts made him quickly scan the building for possible sniper positions and entrances and exits.
"Look at the foundation and frame."
Gao Feng pointed his flashlight at the base of the house and an exposed corner of the wall.
"They used a lot of reinforcing steel. The owner must have reinforced it himself back then."
"Those steel bars deserve a lot of credit for keeping it standing all these years."
"Without them, it would have been a pile of rubble long ago."
Luo Feng focused his gaze on the house as well, quietly extending his Spiritual Force toward it.
In the area around the house, he sensed
only a few small insects and rodents.
There were no signs of large monsters lurking there.
"We'll spend the night here."
Gao Feng made the decision.
"Check every room. Once we've made sure it's safe, we'll take turns keeping watch, two hours per shift."
"Luo Feng and I will take the first shift, Chen Gu the second."
"Wei Tie will take the third shift, the toughest one at midnight, and Wei Qing will take the last. Any problems?"
"No!"
Everyone answered in low voices.
These were basic rules for surviving in the Wilderness Zone. No one would joke around with their own safety.
The group carefully approached the small building.
The front door on the first floor had long since rotted away, leaving a pitch-black opening.
The smell of mold and dust drifted out.
Gao Feng made a hand signal, and the brothers Wei Tie and Wei Qing immediately moved to the left and right.
Like two door gods, they stood guard on either side of the entrance.
Gao Feng and Luo Feng slipped sideways into the house, one after the other.
Their flashlight beams quickly swept over every corner.
The first floor was a spacious main room. The furniture had long since rotted away, leaving only wooden remnants.
Large patches of water damage and mold covered the walls, and a thick layer of dust lay on the floor.
Broken pieces of porcelain and rusty ironware were scattered in a corner.
After confirming there was no danger, Gao Feng motioned for the team to come in.
"Clear!"
Having confirmed there were no threats on the first floor, Gao Feng and Luo Feng exchanged a glance and began to explore the second.
There were several rooms on the second floor, their doors either open or long since broken.
A rusty iron-framed bed stood in the master bedroom, with a pile of tattered fabric on it.
The other two rooms were empty. Most of the windowpanes were broken.
The night wind poured through the holes, making a mournful howling sound.
"Clear. We can rest here."
Luo Feng nodded to Gao Feng.
Gao Feng breathed a sigh of relief and notified the team downstairs over the communications channel:
"The second floor is clear. Everyone come up and prepare to rest. Remember to keep quiet."
The team members went upstairs one after another and chose the master bedroom and the room next door as resting places.
They were relatively sheltered from the wind and offered a better view.
They quickly cleared a clean area and laid down simple moisture-proof mats.
But no one took off their combat suits, and they kept their weapons within reach.
Gao Feng took several high-energy compressed biscuits and some water from his backpack and handed them out. That was dinner.
In the Wilderness Zone, lighting a fire to cook was a luxury and a dangerous act.
Everyone ate their rations in silence, washing them down with cold water.
The room was quiet, filled only with the faint sound of chewing and the ceaseless rustling from the wilderness outside.
The atmosphere was a little oppressive.
"Get as much rest as you can."
Gao Feng ate the last bite of his biscuit and spoke quietly.
"Luo Feng and I will take the first watch. Wake Chen Gu in two hours."
"Remember, if there's any unusual movement, raise the alarm immediately. Don't act on your own."
Chen Gu, Wei Tie, and Wei Qing nodded, each finding a relatively comfortable position and closing his eyes.
Gao Feng and Luo Feng withdrew to a spot near the stairwell.
From there, they could observe the rooms on the second floor while keeping an eye on the stairs and the first-floor entrance.
Time passed slowly in the silence.
"How are you feeling?" Gao Feng asked in an almost inaudible breath.
"Fine."
Luo Feng answered just as quietly, slowly spreading it outward in all directions with himself at the center.
He sensed every slight movement within a hundred meters.
The two hours of the first watch, spent on high alert, seemed unusually long and yet seemed to pass in the blink of an eye.
When Gao Feng gently woke Chen Gu and handed over the watch,
Luo Feng finally felt a little mentally fatigued.
Maintaining such a wide range of Spiritual Force perception for so long was a heavy drain on Luo Feng as he was now.
"Everything's normal. No danger for now."
Gao Feng gave him a brief report.
Chen Gu nodded and quickly settled into the watch.
Luo Feng and Gao Feng returned to the rest area, sat down against the wall, and closed their eyes.
The night passed without incident.
The wilderness night slipped quietly by amid high alert and light rest.
Morning came, and the sun rose.
After a quick cleanup, everyone swallowed cold compressed food and water.
Without any unnecessary talk, the team set out again.
They traveled by day, and at night, relying on the map and what they observed along the way,
they sought out relatively safe abandoned villages or sturdy buildings to spend the night.
On the morning of the third day, the sky was an oppressive leaden gray.
Thick clouds hung low, as though they might come crashing down at any moment.
The air was filled with the smell of damp dust and a faint, elusive scent of decay.
"We're here."
Gao Feng stopped and crouched down.
His fingers brushed over an indistinct road sign lying on the cracked asphalt beneath his feet.
The sign was badly rusted, but the words "5 kilometers to the city center" were still faintly legible.
Everyone's spirits lifted, and they looked up.
Ahead of them was City 003.
In the old era, the supercity had been known as the Magic City, a place of dazzling luxury that countless people had longed for.
Now, it was a nest of monsters.
It was territory occupied by Lord-level Monsters, and Beast General-level Monsters could be found everywhere.
"Stay on twelve-tenths alert."
Gao Feng kept his voice extremely low.
"From this moment on, we could run into monsters at any second."
"Understood!"
Everyone answered in low voices, their hearts quickening involuntarily.
With that, the team proceeded cautiously along an abandoned service road.
Thick dust and broken glass lay underfoot.
Collapsed shops and homes stood on either side.
After several hundred meters, they came to a relatively intact roadside shop with a small storefront.
Its sign had fallen off long ago, and there was no telling what it had once sold.
But its heavy rolling shutter was half open. The interior was small, yet it offered a good view.
"Inside. Rest for five minutes and confirm our next route."
Gao Feng spoke quietly.
As soon as he finished speaking, the team filed inside.
Dust filled the shop, and its shelves leaned every which way, completely empty.
Just then, a piercing, high-pitched birdcall rang out from the sky!
A second followed, then a third... countless cries!
Everyone in the shop went pale. Almost at the same time, they ducked low and held their breath.
They looked through the broken windows and the gap beneath the half-open shutter.
A vast, black cloud had appeared in the sky!
It was an enormous formation of hundreds, perhaps even more, flying monsters!