As Sanzi said that, he casually kicked a nearby wooden wheelbarrow. The wood piled up on the wheelbarrow scattered to the ground, revealing the corpses of several large blue wolves. The woman was initially furious, but the large blue wolves had obviously left a deep impression on her, so her fury quickly turned into disbelief. She immediately shut her mouth, feeling like she had been slapped in the face.

The man wielding the mace hesitated. He was obviously someone who was good at communicating with others. He immediately laughed and said, “In that case, it’s clearly a misunderstanding. Forgive our rudeness, but we have to be careful against such a strong enemy. We’ll take our leave.”

This should have been the end of the matter, but the woman suddenly shouted, “Make them return the wood and stones! Our teammates paid for them with their blood! These people must’ve stood by and watched when we were ambushed so that we’ll injure each other, only to jump out at the last moment to reap all the benefits! Scum like them should be kicked out of our Dark Alliance! They don’t deserve to be our allies!”

After hearing the woman’s words, not only did the man with the mace become a little hesitant, but the gazes of the people around also became a little strange when they looked at Party Ace.

Zi suddenly stepped forward and said flatly while staring straight at the woman, “I have only one thing to tell you.”

“What? It’s too late to beg for forgiveness,” the woman with the silver longbow said without any fear in her voice.

Two incomparably sharp glint suddenly shone from Zi’s eyes. Everyone who saw the glint felt uncomfortable, as if an unbelievably sharp needle had stabbed deep into their brain. In addition, the needle was twirling and spinning and could not be stopped at all.

Then, Zi’s pupils turned into vertical pupils, like those of a dragon. This was nothing strange to her party mates, but what happened next was. Zi’s pupils turned into double pupils!!

When Sheyan saw this, he immediately realised that, unbeknownst to him, Zi had also become a Temperer! The part of her body that mutated were her eyes!

The woman with the bow suddenly let out a shrill cry and started running away, but Zi had already locked on to her. The laughter of a Sith Lord filled the air and echoed through the valley.

The woman’s throat seemed to have been caught by an invisible giant hand. Her feet slowly left the ground as she hung in the air. She kept struggling but could not find a way to break free. Her face was choked purple.

Zi remarked coldly, “If I wished to kill you, I could do it in the blink of an eye. I don’t need to wait till you’re injured.”

The crude man with the mace suddenly sensed that something was amiss. “Stop!” he instantly shouted.

But the moment he called out, the woman’s head burst. The splattered red and white substances made her head look like a smashed rotten watermelon. When the headless body landed on the ground, it actually maintained its balance for a few seconds, its limbs moving about as if it was trying to walk away, but in the end, it fell to the ground with a thud.

Reef and Sheyan had already stepped forward to position themselves in front of Zi, while Ronnie had disappeared into the dark. Evidently, they were all ready to fight.

Reef stared at the furious man and asked flatly, “Do you want to fight?”

“You…how could you kill her?!” the burly man roared. However, the people behind him did not seem to react as passionately.

The burly man looked around with begging eyes at the two parties that were looking on from the side and said earnestly, “Did you guys see that? These people are simply too tyrannical! Halina might’ve been a bit impatient, but…. Hey, hey!”

The onlookers had all turned away when they saw that the show had finished. Of course they would not make enemies out of a party for a woman that had no relation to them; a dead woman, no less. Furthermore, although the party that killed the woman was a small party, they had a powerful MT and likely more than one Temperers! At the current time when most contestants were still Awakeners, how foolish must they be to stand up for the woman?

Reef was pretty generous. Seeing the awkward predicament of the man with the mace, he said, “You’re in the way of our wheelbarrows, sir. Please move aside.”

The burly man could only step aside. From the way he looked, he definitely wished he could rush up to Party Ace and take them on by himself, but reason prevailed in the end.

Zi had looked annoyed ever since she killed the woman. When Sheyan asked her what the matter was, she explained that she had been slapped with a penalty. It turned out that, although the Realm did not strictly forbid allies from murdering each other, it had laid down some traps. Zi had received a warning for killing someone from the same faction as well as a penalty. All her attributes were temporarily reduced by 5 for 24 hours. It took Sheyan quite a while to cheer her up.

But it was not all bad news. They had gained something from killing the woman too. When another party saw them coming, they offered up the best spot to mine stones to Party Ace. Party Ace took over the spot without any hesitation. The Orc slaves instantly started getting busy like worker ants, chopping trees and mining stones. Besides that, they also started making some simple wooden wheelbarrows under Sheyan’s instructions. Since this would be Party Ace’s final trip today, they naturally wished to bring back a little more.

As dusk fell, only Sheyan and his party were left in the whole valley. They had already filled up four huge wooden wheelbarrows.

Reef could not help remarking with worry, “It’s about time we leave, Seaman. The last group that ambushed us only lost four members, so if they wish to take revenge, they should be back right about now. We should be able to deal with them just fine, but they do have the advantage in numbers….”

Sheyan smiled. “Don’t worry. If we consider things from their point of view, they probably won’t come back for us. The real war has yet to begin. The final victory doesn’t belong to the ones who kill the most opposing contestants, but the ones who conquer the other side’s base. It’s definitely not wise to look for trouble with a powerful party before the war has even begun, because using the time to deal with a few more weaker parties will no doubt bring much greater benefits, not to mention it’ll be much safer.”

“Of course, I won’t simply bet my life on the enemy’s decision,” Sheyan’s eyes shined with a cold, fierce glint as he smirked. “So what if they outnumber us. I recently learned a little trick that’s pretty useful in a group fight.”

***

Sheyan’s little trick may not necessarily be a little trick, but his judgment was still pretty reliable. They had filled up the sixth huge wooden wheelbarrows with stones and wood, but did not encounter any other ambushes. On the contrary, they encountered reinforcements; “official” reinforcements, at that.

About 500 Orc warriors had come to the vale. The torches they held were made of thick wooden sticks soaked in turpentine, so they burned strong and would not go out even in the rain. The proportion of Uruk-hai officers among them was very high, all with superior-quality bows and crossbows. They were escorting thousands of Orc labourers and slaves.

Most Orcs had night vision. Under their efforts, one solid watchtower after another were soon erected. Within two hours, all the stone and wood resources in the entire Lossarnach Vale were under the control of the Orc army.

“Are they finally recognising the importance of this resource production area?” asked Reef while looking at the bustling army. “Shall we come back here later tonight, then?”

“Of course not,” denied Sheyan. “This valley will definitely get quite busy after dark. Those guys will never miss a chance to farm for contribution points. Since most of the attention will be on this place, there’s a smaller chance of the camp being harassed, so let’s just transport these materials back and go to bed.”

“But…this…”Ronnie was an assassin, so he seemed a little dismayed.

“I know full well of your lethality in the dark, but we’re a team; you’re not fighting alone anymore. Apart from you, none of us are good at night combat, so the overall fighting power of the party will drop significantly, and it’s just too dangerous to leave you here alone,” explained Sheyan. “Moreover, since the Dark Faction has set up a garrison here, it means that they plan to stay here for a while. Even if there’s a big profit to be made here, it won’t be too late to come back tomorrow. With everything on track, there’ll be less chaos.”

Ronnie had always been willing to listen to Sheyan, because he had seen with his own eyes the people that did not listen to Sheyan on the Predator planet ended up being buried on the planet.

Next, they faced a very troublesome issue: how to drag the huge wooden wheelbarrows full of stones and wood back to the camp. As a result, Mr. Kulutego, whom they had kept hidden as a trump card, displayed his newly-gained power. Over ten earth elementals climbed up from the ground, temporarily bestowed with life by the Cyclops. They obediently pushed the wooden wheelbarrows without any complaints.

Currently, Kulutego had taken on the appearance of a mysterious man dressed in a full-body yellow robe. As long as he did not get into any close combat, he could keep maintaining this image of a top-class earth-element mage. Even Ronnie could see the embarrassment that the enemies who got close to him will face if they fell for his appearance: to go through so much effort to reach this mage, only to suddenly find that the powerless prey in front of them was actually a monstrous two-headed Cyclops…. What a blow to their mind that would be!