Chapter 118: Chapter 108: Projection of the Secret Realm

Two men and two women were walking in the suburbs, chatting and laughing.

“How about it? Our Shu State scenery is pretty good, right? I used to climb Huangyan Mountain here when I was a kid. I remember there’s a pavilion at the bottom of the hill,” said the young man walking in front, speaking to the girl beside him.

The other couple, like lovers in the midst of a sappy romance, sweetly clung to each other, constantly showing off their affection.

The girl coquettishly complained, “We’ve been walking for so long, my legs are sore. Shall we rest over there for a bit?”

Just as the four of them were strolling, a faint noise suddenly came from up ahead.

The noise was quite loud, sounding at regular intervals.

The ground also trembled slightly with each sound, conjuring images of a demon of the mountain skipping rope.

No, no, what am I thinking about.

The young man quickly shook his head to dismiss this ridiculous idea.

Driven by curiosity, the group walked a few steps forward and suddenly the view opened up before them.

In a clearing, there were several people gathered around, and the ground nearby was slightly bulging.

There rose a mound of earth, seemingly alive, as it throbbed rhythmically.

With each pulse, the surface dirt shook off a little, and a twisted glimmer of light seeped through the cracks in the earth.

The young man stared at this scene, mouth agape, a surge of bewilderment rising in his heart.

It was indeed from this mysterious mound that the sound of the ground vibrating emanated.

What is this?

Just then, a woman dressed in denim jacket and jeans, looking dashing, turned her head and strode towards them. She pulled out a badge from her chest and said sternly, “Safety Bureau business, this area is now a high-risk zone, please leave immediately.”

Not daring to delay, the four scrambled away from the site. Once at a safe distance, they burst into discussion, “What’s underneath there, some kind of monster or what?”

“Not necessarily, that woman showed me her badge and said she was from the Safety Bureau, but I’ve never heard of the Safety Bureau…”

“Must be some secret department,” the boyfriend of the couple shook his head.

“I think that light looks a bit like the light from a Secret Realm entrance.”

“How could that be, there’s no Secret Realm here.”

“Let’s just go somewhere else to hang out,” they decided.

“Where to?”

“Maybe back to the city center? I’m getting a bit hungry after walking so much,” said the girl from out of town.

“So do we go back the way we came, or take a different route?” the leading young man pondered a moment, then pointed in a different direction and said, “Let’s go that way. I remember there is a small path that leads directly to the side of the highway, it’ll be shorter.”

After walking a distance, they again heard a faint sound.

“Do you hear that?” the leading young man stopped in his tracks.

The other three listened intently, heartbeats slowing.

It seemed like there were faint sounds from the other side of the woods.

The four exchanged glances, “We didn’t just loop around and come back to the same place, did we?”

“No, I’m pretty confident in my sense of direction,” the young man leading hesitated, “You guys wait here, I’ll go ahead and check it out.”

Huang Haoming took a deep breath, walked a distance forward, and sneaking through the gaps between the trees, he hid behind one and saw on the other side of the woods, a crocodile-like creature straight out of a horror movie rolling on the spot, each roll leaving a heavy thud on the ground beneath it.

Huang Haoming could clearly hear the deep roar coming from its throat, as if it were venting the wild power within its body.

So the noises they had heard were indeed coming from below this creature.

His heart tightened, and he instinctively wanted to retreat.

At that moment, he carelessly crushed a dry leaf underfoot.

Huang Haoming inwardly cursed his luck, knowing he had given himself away.

In the forest, the eagle-headed beast with a card floating over its talons, spun its head a full one hundred and eighty degrees. Its eagle eyes fixed sharply through the woods, pinpointing him behind the tree.

With a loud bang! The rotating cards in the palm of Sìxiàng were hit by some invisible force and shot out dozens of meters, embedding precisely into the tree trunk in front of Huang Haoming.

Huang Haoming jumped in fright, his heart pounding and cold sweat breaking out on his forehead.

“Continue training,” a calm and even voice came from beside the creature.

Huang Haoming shifted his gaze, noticing a young man with long legs and bowed head sitting on a blue stone, his profile turned towards him.

The sunlight filtered through the gaps in the leaves and rested on his chiseled side profile.

He seemed to be looking… at a tablet?

So it was Beast Taming training.

Huang Haoming let out a sigh of relief; he had thought he had stumbled upon some illicit organization’s training ground, mostly because the two beasts looked rather fierce.

It seemed their owner was a good person after all.

Huang Haoming quietly withdrew, being as silent as possible not to disturb the other’s training.

Receiving their owner’s command, the two beasts continued training on their own.

“Sìxiàng, you need to cooperate well with Taotie during the training. Once we’ve earned enough money, the owner will get another beast, and then you won’t be the youngest anymore,” Chen Xing tempted Sìxiàng with a vision of the future.

The owner will have other beasts in the future…

Hearing his owner’s words, Sìxiàng fell into a brief trance, inadvertently intensifying the Soul Shock power.

With a loud bang, the card instantly exploded into countless fragments, and the air around seemed to tremble. Sìxiàng froze, looked at its claws, and then at the fragments with a hint of annoyance in its eyes.

Then it picked up another card from the side and continued training.

The Soul Element skills manifest in two ways, one leaning towards “magic” and the other towards “physical”. Soul Shock falls under the “physical” damage category.