When the first rays of dawn on the second day of the trial zone struggled through the heavy mist.
Lin Feng's squad—this precise and terrifying war machine—had already bared its sharpest fangs, silently closing in on the area Lin Mu had marked as a priority on the map.
It was an open woodland terrain.
Guided by Lin Mu's Blood Scent Gu with pinpoint accuracy, the squad avoided alerting any perimeter beasts and cut directly into the heart of a massive Wind Wolf pack's territory.
At the center of the pack, a mutant Wind Wolf King—its body rivaling an adult water buffalo, fur a dark blue-black—lay dozing atop a boulder.
A Rank 1 Peak Beast King!
"Move!"
Without a moment's hesitation, Lin Feng gave a low command, and the squad instantly formed a textbook-perfect advancing formation.
As the vanguard and absolute spearhead, Lin Feng drew his sword.
The golden gleam of the Metal Rend Gu carved deadly arcs through the dim forest, slicing through the outer Wind Wolf defenses like a knife through tofu.
At the center of the formation, Lin Wan'er was no longer the trembling, delicate girl she once was.
Channeling the Wood Essence Gu, verdant threads of vitality connected to each frontline member, providing continuous stamina recovery and wound repair.
On both flanks of the formation were two unreasonable meat grinders.
Main tank Lin Zhong's entire body gleamed with a grayish-brown rocky luster. Like a runaway chariot, he charged recklessly, bodily ramming aside several pouncing Wind Wolves.
Berserker Lin Wuxie, remembering Lin Mu's instructions, suppressed the demonic black light within him. He relied solely on his horrifying physique—transformed by the Food Path to rival a desolate beast—to fearlessly tear apart any beast that approached with his bare hands.
As for Lin Mu, he drifted like a weightless ghost at the rear, using his Iron Leaf Gu to precisely harvest any stragglers attempting to flank them while maintaining awareness of the entire battlefield.
Dimensional reduction strike.
Facing this comprehensive, three-dimensional special operations assault, the Wind Wolf pack—normally terrifying enough to send ordinary Gu Master squads fleeing—couldn't mount any effective resistance.
The five-man squad rolled through like a red-hot iron ball dropped into cold water, leaving devastation in their wake.
Their formation never wavered as they carved a bloody path straight through the pack toward the Rank 1 Peak Wind Wolf King!
"Awooo—!"
The Wolf King was thoroughly enraged, releasing a roar that shook the forest.
It leaped down from the boulder, spewing several massive crescent-shaped wind blades from its maw that shrieked through the air, slashing toward Lin Feng at the front.
Facing a Beast King of the same rank, the battle's intensity skyrocketed.
"Break!"
Lin Feng didn't retreat an inch. His sword danced wildly, the clash of metal ringing through the forest.
He exchanged dozens of blows head-on with the Wolf King. Though his superior swordsmanship kept the beast suppressed, his Primeval Essence consumption was extreme. Fine beads of sweat soon appeared on his forehead, and his breathing grew ragged.
Just as his old force was spent, a fierce light flashed in the Wolf King's eyes. Its massive jaws lunged straight for his throat.
"Not a chance!"
Two figures seamlessly filled the gap from both sides.
Lin Zhong roared and slammed his rock-solid shoulder into the Wolf King's head, knocking it aside.
Lin Wuxie charged in like a madman, wrapping himself around the Wolf King's hind legs, refusing to let go even as its claws raked bone-deep gashes across his back.
Simultaneously, Lin Wan'er's verdant light fell perfectly upon Lin Feng and the two tanks, instantly calming their churning blood and qi, providing the crucial sustain they needed.
Under this flawless team coordination, after nearly an hour of grueling battle, the seemingly invincible Wind Wolf King finally couldn't hold on.
Covered in blood, with golden sword wounds and bone-deep tears crisscrossing its body, its life force was rapidly draining away.
"Awooo..."
Knowing it was outmatched, the Wind Wolf King let out a mournful, desperate howl.
This cry was like a death squad's horn.
The remaining ordinary Wind Wolves went berserk, throwing themselves forward in a suicidal frenzy, using their flesh and blood to block Lin Feng and the others, trying to buy their King one last chance to escape.
Under the pack's cover, the Wolf King limped through the shrubbery behind it, disappearing into a cloud of kicked-up dust.
"Don't let it escape!" Lin Feng shouted in urgent fury, cleaving through two Wind Wolves with one stroke, only to be pinned down by even more of the pack.
Meanwhile, within that dusty blind spot.
The Wolf King dragged its broken body in a desperate sprint. In its vertical pupils, once filled with savagery, a glimmer of relief and confusion at escaping death had just begun to rise.
Suddenly.
Shhk—
A completely unexpected, extremely faint sound of tearing fabric whispered by its ear.
At some unknown point, a gray figure had been waiting silently along its escape route. That person stood like a breathless statue, only revealing his cold fangs the moment the Wolf King stumbled into range.
No hesitation whatsoever.
A dim cyan flash flickered and vanished.
An Iron Leaf Gu, like death's kiss, sliced—precise, perfect, smooth—across the Wolf King's vulnerable throat, left completely unguarded due to its wounds.
Blood fountained outward, yet not a single drop touched the man's clothes.
Thud.
The Wolf King's massive body slid forward several meters from momentum before crashing to the ground, eyes still open in death.
When Lin Feng and the others finally fought through the pack and arrived, gasping for breath, this was the scene that greeted them:
Lin Mu was crouching beside the enormous wolf corpse, holding a dagger, seemingly clumsily cutting at something.
Lin Feng looked at that single lethal cut, his eye twitching slightly, but then he broke into hearty laughter. This "lucky charm" was truly too useful!
Battle concluded.
Apart from some minor injuries to Lin Wuxie and Lin Zhong at the front, the entire team had ground down a Rank 1 Peak Beast King while remaining in near-perfect condition!
This terrifying combat power caused Squad Three's score on the light screen in the outer plaza to spike dramatically!
Having tasted success, the squad didn't rest for a moment.
Relying on Lin Mu's radar-like intelligence network, they located and killed another Rank 1 Peak Beast King lurking in a swamp that afternoon.
That mutant Mud Crocodile's defense was even more absurd than the Wind Wolf King's, but under the squad's relentless barrage, it still met its end on the spot.
And this time, they not only gained massive points but also received an unexpected windfall.
When Lin Mu dissected the crocodile's corpse, he actually dug out a rare Earth Path defensive Gu in hibernation from its stomach—a Sinking Rock Gu!
"Haha! Heaven is helping me!"
Lin Feng generously assigned this premium Gu to main tank Lin Zhong.
With the Sinking Rock Gu enhancing his rocky muscles, the squad's frontline durability made another qualitative leap—practically impregnable!
The second day's sunset slowly descended amid the heavy scent of blood.
Outside the trial zone, in the clan plaza, countless clan elders and spectating disciples with varied expressions gathered before the massive projection screen.
The rankings were now crystal clear.
Lin Feng's Squad (First Place): With extremely high hunting efficiency and massive point gains, their score led by a mile, firmly holding first place. The soaring numbers had Supreme Elder Lin Zhen stroking his beard and laughing proudly in the stands.
Lin Yan's Squad (Second Place): This mad-dog team was still trading lives for points. Behind the flickering scores on the screen lay extremely brutal slaughter. But anyone with eyes could see that their personnel attrition and exhaustion had reached the limit—they could collapse completely at any moment from one final straw.
Lin Xue's Squad (Third Place): This team's score only ranked mid-tier, appearing quite mediocre. Lin Xue's single-target assassination combined with Lin Ze's turtle-shell defense left them lacking the ability to clear large groups of lesser beasts, resulting in extremely low efficiency.
But strangely, though their points grew slowly, they were remarkably stable. And according to insider reports, this squad had suffered virtually zero casualties so far!
Every experienced elder knew this mediocre-looking squad was watching coldly from the sidelines, conserving strength for the final true "big fish."
Undercurrents surged. Killing intent lurked everywhere.
When the dawn light of the third day tore through the trial zone's thick miasma.
This life-or-death hunt finally entered its final twenty-four-hour countdown.
After two days of near carpet-sweeping searches by all eight squads, the deepest part of the trial zone—a "Land of Extreme Yin" perpetually shrouded in cold white mist—was finally exposed to all survivors' view.
There, the temperature was terrifyingly low, with thick blood-colored frost coating even the leaves.
"Hissss—!"
Suddenly, an extremely sharp, cold, terrifying hiss that chilled every Rank 1 Gu Master to the bone erupted from the center of that extreme yin land, sending the surrounding mist into violent turmoil.
Beneath an ice-cold waterfall hanging inverted from a cliff.
A massive python—over thirty meters long and thick as a barrel—slowly raised its enormous, hideous upper body from the dark pool below.
Atop its head was a bowl-sized bloody scar where its horn had been broken off. At its vital point, a dark red scale had been forcibly torn away, still seeping venomous blood.
But even so, those cold, merciless vertical pupils and the terrifying pressure of a Rank 2 creature radiating from its body still made every living thing within miles tremble and prostrate in fear.
The ultimate prey—the Blood Jade Python—had appeared!
The coordinates of the final decisive battle were completely lit up at this moment.
The squads scattered throughout the dense forest, whether they were fierce tigers at full strength or lone wolves panting with low health, all stopped their actions.
They raised their heads, looking past the overlapping canopies, and unanimously cast greedy and mad gazes toward the direction of that cold waterfall.