Chapter 160: Valley of the Dead

Murong Shanshan checked the information while saying with a smile, "Goodness, they bought 24 guards and 24 archers all at once! If I remember correctly, each of these guards costs about 100,000 RMB, right? Throwing out 4.8 million just like that—they really are wealthy. I still don't quite understand the actual use of these Level 50 NPC guards; I guess they'll just get one-shot by a sword."

Young and Reckless asked modestly, "Then why didn't they buy higher-level guards?"

"You must upgrade the guild territory level before you can purchase higher-level guards," Sunset explained.

Murong Shanshan nodded and said, "Blood Red spent an astronomical 400 million to win the guild creation certificate at auction. Logically speaking, he wouldn't care about investing another 200 million, but why hasn't he bought this valuable piece of territory all this time?"

Sunset analyzed, "If I'm not mistaken, Blood Red knew long ago that the first guild to buy a territory would become a target for everyone, so he wasn't in a hurry to buy this pricey piece of land."

Murong Shanshan smiled faintly. "Spot on. Blood Red's clever plan is to let someone else upgrade this territory to Level 3, and then he will use superior guild forces to attack the city and snatch this ready-made territory. That way, he avoids being the prominent target during the early stages while also saving a massive 200 million in funds. It kills two birds with one stone."

Young and Reckless suddenly realized, "This Blood Red is so scheming!"

I smiled and said to Murong Shanshan, "Shanshan, you must be plotting the exact same idea, right?"

Murong Shanshan let out a sweet chuckle. "Do I have any other choice?"

...

At this moment, a commotion arose ahead. The main core members of Prestige Over the World had all arrived, led at the very front by Prestige Young Master, whom we had already wiped out three times.

There were a lot of people from Prestige Over the World—a dense, dark crowd of them. In contrast, our side only had a few hundred people. Most of them had turned pale with tension, yet Murong Shanshan still wore a smiling expression, as if she wasn't nervous about Prestige Young Master at all in front of her.

"Murong Shanshan, what are you guys doing here?" Prestige Young Master looked at our group coldly.

"Just came to take a look, and we're leaving right away. You don't mind, do you?"

Prestige Young Master laughed out loud, pointing at us as he said, "Do you think you can just come and go as you please in my territory?"

Murong Shanshan smiled indifferently and said, "If you dare to make a move, go right ahead. At worst, you'll wipe out the few hundred people I have here. But a moment later, I'll bring my entire guild over for a visit. I wonder what you'll use to defend against them—just these few Level 50 NPC guards?"

Everyone stared at Prestige Young Master. The moment he gave the order, a massive battle would instantly break out!

After a long while, Prestige Young Master finally choked out, "Get out of here! Give me a week, and I guarantee you won't be acting so arrogant anymore!"

Murong Shanshan smiled triumphantly and said to everyone, "Let's go!"

Prestige Young Master's eyes looked like they were about to breathe fire. Our group walked out of the village gates with our hearts in our throats, and it wasn't until everyone dispersed to grind levels that Murong Shanshan finally let out a sigh of relief, patting her high, proud chest as she said, "Gosh, that scared the life out of me!"

I glared at her and said, "And here I thought you weren't afraid. My legs were almost turning to jelly with fear just now! Didn't you see those thousands of bows aimed right at us?"

"Are you really that timid?" Murong Shanshan gave a charming smile and said, "Let's find a place to grind levels. I'm less than 10 percent away from reaching Level 51."

...

I nodded with a smile and said, "I know a great spot that's perfect for a combination like ours to level up."

"Where is it?"

"The Undead Valley on the shady side of the Silver Moon Mountain Range."

"Ah?" Murong Shanshan looked at me in surprise and said, "Isn't that place already outside the territory of Silver Moon City? I saw introductions on the forum saying that it's entirely populated by undead creatures, and not even human NPCs go there."

"Therefore..." I clapped my hands together and licked my lips, saying, "Places like that are where the real fortunes are made! It's been a while since I sold any equipment, and the auction house is in two days. Dropping by to farm some gear to subsidize my living expenses sounds pretty good."

Murong Shanshan reproached playfully, "I had no idea you were so good at managing a household."

"Cut the crap, are you going or not?"

"Going, of course I'm going!"

...

And so, the two of us exited our original party and formed a two-person leveling team.

The Silver Moon Mountain Range forms an arc surrounding the eastern side of Silver Moon City. Between the city walls and the mountain range lies a vast expanse of forest known as the Silver Moon Forest. Behind the Silver Moon Forest is the Silver Moon Canyon, which we had been guarding all along. The monsters in Silver Moon Canyon vary greatly in type and range mostly between Levels 46 and 60. The territory applied for by Prestige Over the World is located in an open area of Silver Moon Canyon, perfectly connecting the Silver Moon Canyon and the Silver Moon Mountain Range—two premier leveling hotspots.

Our target was located in the northern part of the Silver Moon Mountain Range. That area was still considered an undeveloped frontier for the time being, and rumor had it that all the monsters were Level 50 and above—not a place ordinary people could handle.

Since Murong Shanshan had studied the map before logging on, she took the lead while I followed closely behind her.

"Ever since I arrived at Silver Moon City, I haven't had much interaction with undead monsters. I wonder if the monsters here are similar to those in Hurricane City," Murong Shanshan said cheerfully as she pushed aside a thorny plant blocking her path.

"Who knows? *Realm* keeps all these game details heavily classified. Information isn't made public for areas players haven't visited yet, claiming they want players to explore on their own."

"Is that so?" Murong Shanshan smiled and said, "I heard an adventure team was exploring the map and accidentally stumbled into the nest of a Level 100 Dragon Boss. All 11 members of the team dropped a level. Another team entered the Fog Forest and wandered around for three hours without finding a way out, and in the end, those players logged off to protest to the Realm Corporation. The system ended up giving each of them an old-fashioned compass. Could this be the so-called player exploration you speak of?"

"Don't look at it so pessimistically," I said with schadenfreude. "Games are just like life; they're really about solving one difficulty after another. That's what makes them interesting, right?"

"Perhaps."

The sky gradually began to brighten as another dark night quietly passed, and after an hour-long trek, Murong Shanshan and I finally arrived at our destination—the Undead Valley.

I pointed ahead and lowered my voice. "Look at that, it's so gloomy over there, and even the rocks barely grow any grass. If there is grass, it's that black, rotting poisonous weed. Do you smell... the scent of rotting corpses?"

"Are you looking to die?" Murong Shanshan gave me a hard punch and said angrily, "Stop saying such terrifying things! I live all alone in such a big house, and if I weren't playing this game, I'd definitely be staring at my bedroom door every night, too terrified to sleep. Besides, I've turned the game's olfactory system setting down to the minimum, so I don't smell whatever it is you're talking about."

Disappointed, I could only say, "Let's go. Let's see what's actually ahead."

A stone-paved path extended from the mountain trail all the way into the canyon, but this path looked like it had been abandoned for many years. Wild, unruly grass had forced the small stones out of place on the surface—perhaps it couldn't even be called a road anymore. What surprised me even more, however, was something else: hanging from many of the thick tree trunks around us were humanoid black objects, with swarms of flies buzzing constantly around each one.

Perhaps because I was observing more carefully, Murong Shanshan hadn't noticed any of this terrifying scenery and was walking in front while humming a little tune.

The scene before us flickered slightly as a system prompt appeared: You have entered the map—The Forgotten Village.

Murong Shanshan asked in surprise, "What's going on here? Isn't this place marked as the Undead Valley on the main map?"

"I don't know, let's go in and take a look!" I said indifferently, eyeing a rather dilapidated village in the distance.

A few wild rabbits suddenly darted out from the nearby forest, followed immediately by a flock of birds taking flight into the sky. The bushes rustled, as if something was moving inside.

"Gululp!" Murong Shanshan swallowed hard, frightened into taking a few steps back.

I frowned and, summoning my courage, thrust my sword forward to part the waist-high grass—

"Wah~!"

An ugly zombie popped out from the bushes, but what truly startled me was Murong Shanshan's piercing shriek!

"Big Sis, do you have to yell that loud? It's just a zombie, it's not like you've never killed one!" I said, thoroughly depressed, as I swung my sword to hack at the Level 56 zombie.

Murong Shanshan's pretty face turned slightly red as she aggrievedly said, "It might not be scary on its own, but the atmosphere just now was way too terrifying!"

"Alright, alright, hurry up and help. I'm guessing there's definitely no shortage of these things around here."

With a few quick strikes, the monster was slain. This type of zombie's corpse refreshed very quickly; after a mere three seconds, all that remained on the ground was a gleaming gold coin and a few items that looked like blank sheets of paper.

Murong Shanshan hurriedly picked the items up, but the eerie thing was that there was one piece of paper she simply couldn't pick up. After pondering for a moment, it suddenly dawned on me: we had encountered a quest that required teamwork!

I quickly grabbed that sheet of paper, and a system message immediately followed: This is a damaged piece of paper. It looks like it had some content written on it, but due to the passage of time, the handwriting is no longer legible. Perhaps there are other unusual objects nearby!

Murong Shanshan also looked bewildered. "What is this supposed to be? There's no prompt, and we didn't receive a quest."

I rubbed my nose and said, "Based on my years of gaming experience, this is very likely the prelude to receiving a quest. Let's look around a bit more; I believe we'll get our answers soon."

Murong Shanshan nodded. Just then, a rustling "hiss-hiss" sound drifted from the woods to our right, and I instantly felt goosebumps break out all over my body. Could this place actually be haunted?!