157: Entering the Ancient Secret Realm

The gloomy sky, like a canvas smeared with ink, hung low, giving the illusion that one could reach out and touch it.

In this dark forest, a hazy mist floated everywhere, bearing an eight-tenths resemblance to the forest of the Mist Coast.

When ordinary people looked out, their vision would not extend beyond 5 meters.

Greene had just recovered from the turbulence and nausea experienced when passing through the Secret Realm vortex gate.

After calming his agitated breath, he immediately activated his personal stealth wizardry.

The silent Greene, like a withered tree, perfectly blended into the dense, tree-filled forest.

Now temporarily safe, Greene surveyed his surroundings, frowning slightly.

“Is this it?”

“Low-hanging sky, withered jungle, almost magic-less elemental concentration…”

“This is actually an Ancient Secret Realm?”

Greene muttered to himself, the ambiance of this so-called Ancient Secret Realm was very low.

Greene felt it wasn't even as good as the environment in the Motlan Grand Kingdom; at least the elemental concentration there wasn't so low.

“It seems this Ancient Elf Secret Realm has indeed been thoroughly transformed by modern Wizards, just as the academy's records stated.”

Looking at the somewhat withered jungle before him, the leaves were a mix of yellow and green, with yellow making up more than half.

Most trees were continuously shedding leaves, and many were left with only twisted, bare trunks, appearing somewhat eerie and terrifying.

As if sensing the presence of a living person, the surrounding trees became active, and the rustling sound of leaves constantly echoed, as if people were whispering.

Greene ignored these strange trees and instead used several methods to calculate his current location.

According to the positioning disk's estimate, Greene was now on the outskirts of this Mist Forest terrain, relatively close to Target No. 3.

“Go to location No. 3.”

Greene, making a swift decision, immediately set off.

He moved like a lurking leopard, a ghost, using the dense trees to conceal his figure, advancing rapidly and silently.

“Thump, thump, thump…”

“Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh…”

Greene, having traveled less than half a mile, keenly detected a considerable commotion coming from his left.

Greene immediately changed direction, stealthily creeping closer, his movements exceptionally skilled.

“It's a Wizard from the Blood Fortress, looks like an Advanced Wizard Apprentice.”

Greene discovered a disguised 'Voldemort,' but unfortunately, his camouflage technique was not up to par.

The leaf suit, similar to a ghillie suit, draped over him, was clearly out of place with the surrounding environment, especially as he was rapidly wriggling.

Greene spotted this 'Voldemort' at a glance.

Coupled with the faint, lingering scent of blood, it seemed this Wizard from the Blood Fortress also knew that this terrain was very disadvantageous for them and wanted to hide and secretly rendezvous.

“Hehe…”

“Meeting me, you can only consider yourself unlucky…”

Greene thought to himself, according to the academy's third pre-planned scenario, if they entered the Mist Forest, the most advantageous terrain, Greene and the other 18 Bio-armor Experimenters, who were Peak combatants, could forgo immediately gathering at the three treasure chest locations.

Instead, they could use the complex jungle environment to hunt down the Wizards from the Blood Fortress, thereby reducing the pressure of the final decisive battle.

“It's hunting season! Watch my close-range output!”

… Greene directly approached the back of this 'Voldemort.'

Finding the right position, in the next moment, he unleashed the strongest thrust of a Bloodline Great Knight at their limit—

“Thousand Years of Pain!”

The silver-white Life Aura light illuminated the dark jungle within a dozen meters in all directions.

“Ah…”

A shrill scream erupted, like a castrated boar, but was abruptly cut short the next second.

“Boom…”

A 70-degree Exploding Fireball ignited behind the 'Voldemort,' closely followed by the Magic Gold Greatsword.

A powerful explosion wave violently threw the two tightly-clinging figures apart, simultaneously inflicting maximum damage on the 'Voldemort.'

“Ptooey, ptooey…”

Greene spat out the sand he had ingested, ignoring the need to calm his agitated blood and qi affected by the explosion, and forcibly swallowed the blood that had risen to his throat.

Taking three steps as two, he sprinted with his long 1.8-meter legs, instantly darting to the side of the yellow-green 'Voldemort.'

With one swift and clean strike, he beheaded the Advanced Wizard Apprentice, who had suffered continuous heavy blows, ending his pain.

Then, Greene didn't bother searching for loot; he simply couldn't afford to 'lick the bag.'

He immediately administered a tube of burning potion, which ignited into a blazing inferno within seconds.

After casually disrupting the scene and adding some battle traces to confuse any discoverers or increase the difficulty for enemies to restore the battlefield, Greene changed direction and slipped away.

Less than ten seconds passed.

Suddenly, a breeze swept through, and on the ravaged battlefield, two giant blood-red bats appeared.

The blood-red bats circled the entire battlefield, searching for a long while, but found no significant clues.

However, their extensive experience allowed them to deduce and reconstruct the battle process from the subtle traces at the scene.

“Damn him, how despicable! A dignified Peak Wizard Apprentice, a renowned figure, resorting to such sneak attacks. Shameless!”

“We've lost another good hand, it infuriates me!”

“Alright, the opponent is an old hand; a single strike, then a swift retreat over a thousand miles. We can't do anything to him.

Let's hurry and rescue the other Apprentices.”

“This damned forest environment! Why are we so unlucky to draw this kind of environment? Isn't this just setting us up to be passively beaten?”

“Hurry, there's another big commotion in the northwest!”

… The eternally burning flames of war spread throughout the Mist Forest, reigniting everywhere.

Suddenly, the Secret Realm space, which had been silent for a century, became lively.

From time to time, one could hear the explosive roars of various wizardry clashing, intense battle sounds, and screams of slaughter.

In this Secret Realm, where directions were unclear and indistinguishable, only the locations of the three treasure chests were known to everyone, and they were crucial items that both academies had to contend for.

Therefore, everyone was heading in the same direction, and the chances of encountering each other were naturally very high.

This Secret Realm space had set rules: one day to decide the victor.

Whoever could gather the keys from the three treasure chests would be able to use these three keys to open the secret room containing the fruit of life and gain the opportunity to become a Formal Wizard.

Thus, centered around these three treasure chests, a bloody struggle was bound to unfold between the two academies.

The Peak combatants of the Plant Heart Academy were all acting alone, like reapers in the dark, frantically hunting down the lower-tier combatants from the Blood Fortress.

As for the other Apprentices of Plant Heart, they were rushing with all their might to Treasure Chest Locations No. 2 and No. 3, preparing to secure the keys for those two chests first.

This was a race against time!

It was also a race of death!