77: Chapter 77 Hatching Eggs in the Deep Sea

"Could this report be wrong?"

Zhou Wenyuan flew side-by-side with the Sword Saint, tearing through the sky at several times the speed of sound, racing toward Huangque City in the southwest. The gale force winds generated by their high-speed flight were easily deflected by the protective energy barriers around their bodies.

During the flight, Zhou Wenyuan's brow furrowed deeper and deeper. As a Nation-Guarding Level veteran who had weathered over 350 years of storms and risen since the early days of the Class Transition Era, his knowledge far exceeded that of ordinary people. Clearing an epic-level secret realm solo in half an hour? This news sounded like a fantasy, constantly battering his deep-rooted understanding of reality.

"In this old man's opinion, it is absolutely impossible!" Zhou Wenyuan couldn't help but speak up again, his voice clear despite the whistling of the high-speed airflow. "I have roamed the world for a lifetime and have conquered countless high-level secret realms. Even for a four-person epic-grade dungeon, the fastest record back in the day took a day and a half! A thirteen-person team dungeon? Without three to five days of meticulous preparation and rotating shifts to rest, don't even think about it! Half an hour? I'm afraid they wouldn't even reach the first BOSS!"

He wasn't questioning the Sword Saint, but the matter was so bizarre that it challenged his entire understanding of the power system and the rules of secret realms.

The Sword Saint looked grim, but his tone was firm: "The source of the information is reliable. That child, Wang Jie, used an encrypted recording crystal to record the entire process of the secret realm entrance dissipating, and the energy monitoring data was transmitted along with it. The blood energy field in that area has indeed completely calmed down and returned to normal. It cannot be faked."

"Recording crystal... energy monitoring..." Zhou Wenyuan repeated in a low voice, a sharp glint flashing in his old eyes, though he still couldn't mask his disbelief. "Even so... this is too shocking. Such a person can no longer be described by the word 'genius'; they are simply a monster!"

His worldview had been violently shaken. He had seen too many brilliant talents, including himself as an owner of an SS-Rank Talent. But even in his prime, he couldn't have achieved this level. This wasn't just a matter of output or defense; the strange monster traits and complex environmental mechanisms in an epic-level secret realm required an extremely comprehensive, even "all-around" ability to handle.

"If this is true..." Zhou Wenyuan's expression suddenly darkened, his tone turning serious. "How is the information blockade?"

"I have already issued an order immediately for my directly controlled 'Shadow Guard' to take over this matter and implement the highest level of information control," the Sword Saint replied in a deep voice. "Wang Jie and the other four have been isolated on the spot and have signed the highest-level confidentiality agreement. Before they contacted me, this matter had not leaked out. Currently, only those five, you, me, and a few core members of the Shadow Guard know about it."

"Well done." Zhou Wenyuan nodded slowly, deep worry appearing on his aged face. "Once such a person is exposed, they will inevitably become a target for everyone. Those fellows across the ocean, and those barbarians in the north, will never sit by and watch such a variable appear in our Xia Kingdom. The tragedy of 'Spark' seventy years ago must never be repeated!"

The "Spark" he mentioned was the codename of a stunningly brilliant s-rank talent from the Xia Kingdom over seventy years ago. At the age of thirty, he had shown the potential to reach the Nation-Guarding Level, but unfortunately, he was killed in an unknown attack during an international exchange event, and the true culprit has never been identified.

This incident became a permanent pain in the hearts of the Xia Kingdom's top brass and completely changed the country's foreign strategy, shifting from actively seeking international cooperation to cautious defense and internal cultivation.

Ordinary s-rank or SS-Rank Talent holders might not attract the all-out targeting of transnational forces. But an existence capable of clearing an epic-level secret realm solo in half an hour... its potential could no longer be measured by existing standards, and the sense of threat it brought was enough to make any hostile force stop at nothing to nip it in the bud.

"Peaceful coexistence?" Zhou Wenyuan let out a cold snort. "Nothing more than a desperate fantasy of the weak. In this world surrounded by monsters, the shadow war between nations has never stopped. Protecting such a seed is protecting the future backbone of our Xia Kingdom!"

More than an hour later, the two crossed thousands of kilometers and descended upon the wild land outside Huangque City that had already returned to calm.

Wang Jie and the other four were being guarded by members of the Shadow Guard, all of them pale, their eyes still lingering with the undissipated shock and confusion. Behind them, the epic-level secret realm entrance, which had originally been filled with blood light and swirling vortices, was now gone, leaving only a piece of ordinary wasteland no different from the surroundings, without even a trace of residual abnormal energy in the air.

"It really disappeared." Zhou Wenyuan personally scanned it repeatedly with his spiritual power, finally accepting this incredible fact. He had lived for so many years and had never seen such a bizarre and rapid secret realm clearance. This was more intuitive and intense than the shock he felt when he first heard the news.

The Sword Saint stepped forward, his gaze like lightning, sweeping over Wang Jie and the other four, his voice carrying unquestionable majesty: "What you have seen and heard today is a top-secret national matter. The five of you must take a soul oath to never reveal a single detail to anyone for the rest of your lives, including your closest relatives. Violators will be treated as traitors; you know the consequences."

"Yes! We will strictly obey the Sword Saint's orders!" Wang Jie took the lead, and the five of them bowed in unison, their voices trembling slightly. They knew the seriousness of the matter and dared not disobey in the slightest. Even without the constraint of an oath, after witnessing (or rather, indirectly confirming) that scene that subverted their cognition, they themselves felt a sense of unreality about this world.

Looking at the terrified and dazed appearance of these young talents, the Sword Saint and Zhou Wenyuan also felt a lot of emotion. When they were young, weren't they also arrogant, looking down on their peers? But today, an unseen mysterious existence had completely crushed the pride of these favored children of heaven in just half an hour, and it also made these old guys feel a certain deep sense of crisis?

"Immediately arrange for a 'Dream Weaver' to come over," the Sword Saint instructed a Shadow Guard who appeared like a shadow beside him. "Create a stable phantom of a secret realm entrance here that will last for nine days, simulating the energy fluctuations and scenes of a normal clearance. After nine days, arrange for it to 'dissipate normally'."

"Yes!" The Shadow Guard took the order and retreated silently.

"Nine days... should be quite reasonable," Zhou Wenyuan stroked his white beard. "It won't attract too much attention, and it fits the time expectation for a top-tier genius team to cautiously clear an epic-level secret realm. It's just..." He gave a bitter smile. "I'm afraid that for a long time to come, we old guys will have to live under the pressure of 'the younger generation is to be feared'."

The Sword Saint did not respond; his gaze was cast toward the distant horizon, as if trying to pierce through the void to find the mysterious genius who had created a miracle but left no trace. What was surging in his heart, besides shock, vigilance, and the desire to protect, was also an indescribable expectation.

"Perhaps the gears of the era have really begun to turn faster." He thought to himself.

At this moment, Lin Muyang, who was already thousands of miles away, naturally did not know what kind of earthquake his casual actions had triggered among the top brass of the Xia Kingdom.

He was counting the rich harvest from this trip to the epic-level secret realm, and his mood was quite good.

"That final BOSS was indeed a bit interesting, with dual traits of 'Thorn Retaliation' and 'Life Siphon', high retaliation ratio, and ridiculously fast healing speed..." Lin Muyang recalled the big guy in the deepest part of the secret realm. "If it weren't for [Indestructible] to immunize against retaliation, [Healing Weakening] to suppress healing by 90%, plus the explosive output provided by [Indestructible] and [Eye of Lethality], it would have really taken a while to grind it down."

When a regular team encounters this kind of BOSS, they need to prepare various means of weak healing, damage reduction, and damage sharing, and the output must be violent enough, otherwise it would be a long and painful war of attrition, often calculated in terms of "days".

But for him, it was nothing more than switching one or two more Aura, and spending two or three more minutes.

"Overall, the difficulty was moderate, and the gains... were very considerable!"

His gaze fell on the exclusive storage space opened by the Princess Bracelet. There, dozens of items emitting various lights were lying quietly, the vast majority of which were surrounded by the dark golden legendary luster, and even a few pieces faintly revealed a deeper dark red halo—that was the epic-grade light that surpassed legendary!

The experience points allowed him and the four women to steadily step into level 45.

More importantly, those equipment, skill book, and special materials... every single one of them, if taken out, would be enough to cause a small-scale sensation. legendary-grade weapons, armor, and accessories had powerful attributes and amazing special effects; epic-grade materials were necessities for forging top-tier equipment or completing special tasks; and there were a few skill book exuding an ancient Aura, recording powerful skills of at least King-grade or higher.

"This trip was worth it." Lin Muyang put away his thoughts with satisfaction.

He did not immediately use or process these spoils. The top priority was to find an absolutely safe and suitable place to carry out the next important plan—hatching that mysterious "Phoenix Heavenly Maiden" egg.

His gaze turned to the east, to that vast, boundless, and dangerous, yet absolutely secret place—the deep sea.