The Wolf That Became a Spirit

The dizziness from the spatial transfer lasted only a breath.

A soft crunch of snapping dead branches came from underfoot.

Chen Guan's vision recovered from the distorted light and shadows.

The expected green grass and flowing streams were nowhere to be seen.

Before him was a dead, gray forest.

Withered, twisted trees pierced toward the sky, their bare branches contorted into struggling postures.

Thick gray fog permeated the woods, reducing visibility to less than twenty meters.

The wind howled endlessly as it passed through the treetops.

The stench of rotting decay mixed with a faint scent of blood, drifting into their noses.

This wasn't the Crying Valley; it was the Funeral Valley.

[??? Is the intel wrong? This is what a D-rank dungeon looks like? Why does it feel so creepy?]

[With this atmosphere, I wouldn't believe it if you told me there wasn't an A-rank Boss inside.]

[Normal. If there were no accidents, would he still be the protagonist? Wherever the protagonist goes, trouble follows.]

[What are you afraid of? My bro Guan is carrying a coffin on his back. He has the home-field advantage, okay? This is right up his alley.]

"Everyone be careful. The situation doesn't match the data; the difficulty might have been upgraded."

An Changqing's voice rang out. He was exactly the same as always, as if everything that had happened recently had never occurred.

Rustle.

The sound of dead leaves being disturbed came from the fog to the front left.

A cyan shadow swept past, so fast it was almost impossible for the eye to catch.

It left only a blur in the air, its target pointed straight at Su Yuehe on the outermost edge of the group.

Her reaction wasn't slow; she immediately hurled a fireball at it.

But the shadow was exceptionally cunning.

It changed direction in mid-air with an unnatural posture, pushed off a tree trunk with its four claws, and promptly hid itself.

"It's a Wind Blade Wolf," An Changqing said, staring in the direction the shadow disappeared. "They are testing us."

As soon as he spoke, pairs of eerie green eyes lit up in the fog from all directions.

They flickered in and out of the fog, using the environment to perfectly hide their figures, only using tricky cyan wind blades for ranged harassment.

The wind blades tore through the air with piercing shrieks, carving deep gashes into the cores of the surrounding tree trunks.

[Holy crap, have these wolves become demons? They even know guerrilla warfare and reconnaissance by fire?]

[Their tactical literacy is higher than my military training instructor's.]

[There must be an expert guiding them from behind.]

Chen Guan reached out with one hand, his spiritual power surging.

Light and shadow intertwined with spiritual power.

A bleeding sika deer, covered in wounds, materialized in the clearing twenty meters ahead of the squad.

Even the rich scent of blood was simulated perfectly.

The sika deer ran two steps in panic before collapsing from exhaustion.

It twitched, exuding a strong aura of life.

He wanted to see if these wolves had really become demons.

The green lights in the fog paused for a moment.

Reason and hunger clashed briefly.

Ultimately, the thirst for flesh and blood overpowered everything else.

Three Wind Blade Wolves were the first to dart out of the fog.

They formed a triangular formation, taking turns covering each other as they pounced toward the sika deer.

The moment they stepped into the predetermined range.

Su Yuehe let out a soft shout, and an invisible force spread outward.

The ground beneath the three Wind Blade Wolves suddenly turned into a sticky mud swamp. Their momentum was instantly halted, and their bodies paused.

Meanwhile, Long Ao's body had already stored power to its limit.

The ground beneath his feet shattered on impact, sending dirt and rocks flying. He launched himself forward using the recoil force, his fist covered in a layer of blazing white light. With one punch, he struck the head of the leading Wind Blade Wolf dead center.

Bang!

The wolf's head was pierced by the force of the punch, its entire skull shattering as red and white matter splattered everywhere.

The other two Wind Blade Wolves had just broken free from the swamp, only to be met by a spinning whip kick from Long Ao.

The air was whipped with a sound like tearing silk.

The two wolves were kicked in half at the waist in mid-air, their bodies folding at bizarre angles as they smashed into the ground.

An Changqing did not relax. He gripped his sword, his eyes still locked on the surrounding fog.

Seeing that their sneak attack had failed and the bait was a trap, the remaining Wind Blade Wolves' green eyes flickered a few times in the fog before they retreated into the gray depths, making no further sound.

"Beautifully done," An Changqing exhaled a breath of stale air and nodded at Long Ao and Su Yuehe.

Long Ao grinned, walked over to An Changqing, and punched him on the shoulder.

He didn't say anything, but that grinning mouth and the force of the punch on the shoulder explained everything.

Chen Guan walked over to the wolf corpses and began to skillfully dismantle them.

After storing away the crystal cores, his movements paused beside one of the wolf corpses that Long Ao had kicked in half.

He crouched down and, under the guise of examining the wound, used his finger to slice open a cut on the wolf corpse's abdomen.

A faint herbal scent that didn't belong to a Wind Blade Wolf drifted out, mixed with the smell of blood.

Inside its stomach, there were residues of incompletely digested medicinal dregs. He frowned slightly. These weren't unprocessed medicinal herbs; these were fully refined pills made by someone.

If it wasn't that this wolf had become a demon capable of grabbing herbs and refining them in an instant, then there really was an expert guiding them from behind.

Chen Guan slowly stood up, no emotional fluctuations visible on his face. His gaze swept across the surrounding ground.

The fallen leaves in this area were very thick, covering up the vast majority of traces, but they could only deceive the naked eye, not his newly improved spiritual power.

He walked a few steps toward the edge and stopped at the base of a dead tree.

The fallen leaves there showed signs of being turned over.

He gently pushed aside the surface layer of leaves with the tip of his foot.

A distinctly outlined footprint was imprinted in the dirt.

It was not a wolf's paw print.

A humanoid footprint, but a size larger than an ordinary person's.

The soil around the edge of the footprint showed a charred black color, as if corroded.

Demonic power.

Guan Jinyue's words echoed in his mind.

"The demon race has been making unusual moves recently. Huaqing is the first stop."

He raised his head and looked deep into the distance. Sure enough, there were other existences in this D-rank dungeon.

At that moment, a tragic whistle tore through the deathly silence of the valley.

Whoosh! Bang!

In the distant sky, a dazzling red firework bloomed in the air, forming a distress signal.

That flare came from deeper within the valley.

An Changqing's expression, which had just relaxed slightly, tensed up again.

"It's not our people," his voice was tight. "But the academy only arranged for our class to enter the dungeon."