Wh...What happened

During lunchtime, the cafeteria of the training camp was filled with a tense atmosphere.

Most of the trainees ate without tasting their food, huddled in small groups and whispering about the upcoming Black Forest hunt in the afternoon.

Every face bore a look of grim seriousness as they analyzed maps, assigned roles, and even began discussing strategies for handling potential dangers.

Only one table in the corner stood out, completely out of sync with the rest of the cafeteria.

Su Qi had seven or eight dishes laid out before him, their aromas rich and enticing.

He ate with single-minded focus, occasionally picking up a piece of food, blowing off the steam, and carefully feeding it to Liu Yuan.

Liu Yuan took small bites, her large eyes narrowing into satisfied crescents.

Countless complicated gazes were cast their way—some jealous, some puzzled, but most filled with a wary fear that kept others at a distance.

No one dared to approach them, let alone step within three meters of their table.

...

After the meal.

At the entrance of the Black Forest, towering ancient trees blotted out the sky, casting vast, eerie shadows.

The air was thick with the damp, rotting stench of decay, mixed with the musky odor of some unknown beast—enough to make anyone gag.

Lin Xiao stood at the front, reiterating the rules.

"Remember, this is not a drill! If you encounter a threat you can't handle, don't play the hero! As long as you make it back out, I’ll ensure your safety."

"Inside the Black Forest, you’re responsible for your own survival."

His gaze swept over the crowd, his tone growing heavier.

"Especially the core zone—stay the hell away from it! Understood?"

"And one more thing—every night at 10 PM, everyone must return to the rest area. I need a headcount to confirm casualties."

Though the last rule seemed odd,

no one questioned it.

"Understood."

"Understood."

With Lin Xiao’s command, the trainees scattered like startled birds, vanishing in small groups into the depths of the oppressive darkness.

Li Ran, Liu Feiyu, and their squad exchanged glances, their faces tight with suppressed battle lust.

Their strength had surged.

Now, they desperately needed a real fight to prove themselves.

"It’s been a month since we last stretched our limbs. Perfect time to test our skills on these beasts! Let’s go!"

Li Ran growled, charging in first with agile movements.

Yun Huang didn’t follow the main group.

Her aloof figure paused only briefly at the entrance before she strode alone into the dense woods without hesitation, quickly disappearing from sight.

In the blink of an eye, only Lin Xiao and a few logistics officers remained at the entrance.

And… Su Qi and Liu Yuan, who hadn’t moved an inch.

Lin Xiao’s eyelid twitched violently again.

He watched as Su Qi pulled something from his pocket, unwrapped it, and handed Liu Yuan a lollipop.

Liu Yuan accepted it happily and popped it into her mouth.

"You’re not going in?" Lin Xiao finally couldn’t hold back.

"Nope." Su Qi fished out a bag of chips from his pocket and pointed at the gloomy forest. "Look how dark and damp it is. Must be swarming with mosquitoes."

Liu Yuan nodded vigorously in agreement.

Lin Xiao felt his chest tighten. "Where the hell did you even get all these snacks?"

He took a deep breath. "Right."

"Tonight, I’ll arrange for a wave of source beasts to attack the rest area."

"Just make sure you self-destruct properly."

"Don’t interfere with the fight."

"If things get too rough, go out for barbecue or something."

Su Qi agreed cheerfully. "Got it."

He plopped down on a nearby boulder and even pulled out a tiny phone.

Lin Xiao covered his face, feeling dizzy.

...

Deep in the Black Forest.

"ROAR—!"

A giant lizard, the size of a truck and covered in emerald-green scales, burst from the muddy swamp, its gaping maw spewing a foul, rancid wind as it lunged at Li Ran.

"Watch out!" Liu Feiyu shouted.

A thick earthen wall erupted from the ground, blocking the lizard’s path with precision.

BOOM!

The wall shattered, but the lizard’s momentum was stalled for a split second.

That was all Li Ran needed.

His figure flashed to the lizard’s flank, his fist blazing with scorching flames that carved a brilliant arc through the dim forest.

"Flame Fist!"

SIZZLE—!

His punch sliced effortlessly through the tough scales, sending a spray of steaming blood into the air.

The lizard let out a pained shriek before its massive body crashed to the ground, twitching briefly before going still.

"Whew…" Li Ran exhaled, wiping blood from his face.

"Nice one!"

"Great teamwork!"

The squad members relaxed, grinning.

So far, they’d taken down seven or eight seventh-tier source beasts, their coordination growing smoother and their confidence returning.

"Guess this Black Forest isn’t so tough after all," one member remarked casually.

"Don’t get cocky." Li Ran frowned, eyeing the increasingly twisted trees around them. "This is just the outskirts. The deeper we go, the worse it gets. Stay sharp."

They didn’t even bother collecting spoils before pressing onward.

Unbeknownst to them, shortly after they left, the dead lizard’s corpse began sprouting eerie, thread-like black vines.

The vines writhed, burrowing into the flesh, and moments later, the lizard’s lifeless eyes… reignited with a ghostly green glow.

...

Meanwhile, elsewhere.

Yun Huang moved silently through the dense woods.

Her footsteps were near-soundless.

Poisonous insects and miasma recoiled as if bowing to a monarch, never daring to come within three feet of her.

Suddenly, she halted.

On a tree trunk ahead, a vividly colored spider crouched motionless, its eight compound eyes fixed intently on her.

A seventh-tier source beast—the Phantom Weaver Spider.

Feared for its lethal venom and illusion-casting abilities.

Any seventh-tier human would dread encountering it.

But Yun Huang simply stared back.

The spider’s body began trembling uncontrollably, its legs quivering.

From her, it sensed an instinctual, soul-deep terror—one it couldn’t resist.

Seconds later, it let out a shrill "screee!" before leaping off the tree and fleeing into the deeper woods, too terrified to even consider fighting back.

Yun Huang remained expressionless and continued forward.

It might have been arrogant,

but she wanted to test her theory against an eighth-tier creature.

Unconsciously, she had ventured deep.

The trees around her grew more grotesque, the stench of decay thickening.

She stopped again.

Ahead, a human corpse lay sprawled on the ground.

More precisely, the corpse of a trainee wearing the camp’s uniform.

But not from their current batch.

The body was mutilated, its withered face frozen in an expression of sheer terror.

And beside it…

A blood-red flower, unnaturally vibrant, bloomed in eerie silence.

Yun Huang’s gaze settled on that flower.

The petals were vividly crimson, as if nourished by the freshest blood, their edges adorned with eerie dark golden veins that emitted a faint, seductive glow in the dim forest.

It was beautiful.

A beauty so sinister it sent chills down one's spine.

The lifeless body of the student nearby seemed to have been drained of all vitality, transformed into sustenance for this unnatural flower.

Yun Huang did not approach.

She could feel the flower "calling" to her.

A temptation born from the depths of her psyche, promising greater power, purer evolution—if only she would offer a part of herself.

Her expression remained unchanged.

Her mental barriers effortlessly repelled the invasive whispers.

Slowly, she raised her hand.

Just as she prepared to obliterate the demonic blossom—

A sudden mutation occurred.

The ground trembled faintly.

The twisted trees around her seemed to awaken, their bark contorting into agonized human faces, mouths gaping in silent screams.

Black, hair-like vines erupted from the soil, coiling around the trees and the withered corpse.

Crack—

The corpse, long devoid of life, let out a brittle sound as its neck twisted at an impossible angle, its head slowly lifting.

Within its hollow eye sockets, twin embers of blood-red light flickered to life—identical to the sinister glow of the flower.

...

Meanwhile, at the other end of the forest...

"Damn it! What the hell are these things?!" Li Ran smashed his fist through the skull of a zombie wolf, only for another creature's claws to slash his arm, leaving a deep, bone-exposing wound.

The moment blood seeped out, black tendrils latched onto the injury, writhing madly as they burrowed into his flesh.

"Don't let them scratch you! Their claws are tainted!" Liu Feiyu roared, summoning earthen walls to momentarily hold back the relentless tide of monsters.

Their squad had been scattered.

The forest was teeming with these tireless, fearless abominations.

Once native creatures of this realm, they were now mere puppets controlled by the black vines.

"Fall back! Retreat toward the entrance!" Li Ran barked, knowing full well that staying meant certain death.

But their hope shattered just as quickly.

The path behind them was already sealed.

More monsters surged from every direction, forming an impenetrable ring of fangs and claws.

Every single one bore those ominous crimson flames in their eyes.

...

The corpse moved.

Its neck twisted unnaturally, its hollow gaze locking onto Yun Huang, the bloody light within its sockets pulsing like a venomous curse.

Creak… creak…

Its stiff limbs groaned as it struggled to stand.

At the same time, every black vine on the ground writhed to life, surging toward Yun Huang like serpents scenting blood.

The tormented faces on the trees stretched their jaws wide, unleashing an invisible tsunami of psychic assault aimed at crushing her soul.

A death trap.

A simultaneous assault of flesh and mind, enough to shred even a seventh-tier warrior into nothing but fertilizer for that cursed flower.

Yun Huang did not move.

She didn’t even glance at the encroaching vines or the reanimated corpse.

Her focus remained solely on the crimson blossom.

In her perception, all the malice, all the corruption in this place, stemmed from that single entity.

To defeat the enemy, strike its heart first.

No grand gathering of energy. No dazzling spectacle.

She simply pressed forward with one hand.

A domain of flames erupted around her.

The black vines, upon touching the edge of the inferno, ignited instantly, withering into brittle ash before scattering like dust.

The reanimated corpse, mere inches from her, froze mid-lunge, its body engulfed in flickering flames.

With a final shudder, it collapsed into a heap of bones and dust.

The faces on the trees let out one last silent shriek before dissolving back into bark.

Step by step, Yun Huang advanced toward the flower.

The blossom trembled violently, its dark golden veins flashing frantically as it unleashed a desperate wave of mental coercion.

[Offer your soul… and gain eternity…]

[Become one with me… and reign supreme…]

Yet these whispers couldn’t even form coherent words in Yun Huang’s mind before her will crushed them into oblivion.

She reached out.

The flower’s final act of defiance was to snap shut, its petals morphing into a blood-red spike that stabbed at her palm.

Yun Huang didn’t flinch.

She let the spike strike her flawless skin.

Ting.

A crisp sound, as if it had struck metal.

The spike shattered.

Her fingers closed around the stem, wrenching the flower from the earth.

She could feel it—a vast, corrupted life force thrashing in her grip, desperate to corrode her flesh.

She simply tightened her hold.

Brutal. Absolute. No room for resistance.

When she opened her hand again, the flower had crumbled to ash, carried away by the wind.

...

"We can’t hold on!"

Li Ran punched back two zombified apes, his knuckles split and bleeding.

Behind him, Liu Feiyu’s face was deathly pale, his earthen barriers crumbling faster than he could raise them. His spirit energy was nearly spent.

The surviving squad members stood back-to-back, their faces etched with despair.

The monsters were endless.

Unstoppable.

Li Ran gritted his teeth, but no words of encouragement came.

"If it comes to it, everyone fends for themselves. Better disqualified than dead."

Then—

One second.

Two.

The deafening roars and snarls vanished.

Silence.

Li Ran forced his eyes open.

What he saw would haunt him forever.

Every monster surrounding them had frozen mid-attack.

The zombified bear, its claws inches from a teammate’s face, hung motionless in the air.

Then, before their disbelieving eyes, crimson flames flickered within each creature—only to snuff out instantly.

One by one, the monsters that had nearly slaughtered them crumbled like sandcastles, disintegrating into dust.

Within moments, the encirclement was gone.

Sunlight pierced through the canopy, dispelling the lingering miasma of decay.

As if the nightmare had never happened.

"What… just happened?" Liu Feiyu muttered, collapsing to the ground.

Li Ran did not respond. With great effort, he turned his stiff neck and gazed in one direction.

At the edge of the woodland, a solitary figure stood silently.

It was Yun Huang.