Wraith Mountain Range, amidst a forested valley tinged with autumn hues.

Six men and women clad in Tier Two Battle Armor, bearing the emblem of a pitch-black skull, surrounded a blonde woman with two long silver-gray horns on her forehead.

"Priscilla, you've crossed the line. Even if you're from Domain City, today you'll have to stay here. We'll wait for your teacher to come and bail you out!"

A Mountain Race man, nearly six meters tall, wearing a silver-white metal skull helmet, blocked the only road out of the valley, holding a giant hammer the size of his body. He calmly looked down at the blond-horned woman as if she were a child, his tone indisputable.

"I've crossed the line?" The blonde-horned woman, also in Tier Two Battle Armor, retorted with a hint of anger in her beautiful eyes, "It's your Smiling Skull who've gone too far! It's one thing to conduct trade between two domains, but now you're even ferrying those rats back and forth between them. Did you really think we wouldn't notice?"

Had she not been injured by the higher-ups of Smiling Skull during a covert reconnaissance, neither the Mountain Race man before her nor the entire Smiling Skull squad would have been able to stop her.

"We Smiling Skull aren't your Domain City underlings; it's just fair trade. They can pay, so what we do in the Wraith Mountain Range is none of your Domain City's business," the Mountain Race man shrugged off the accusation. "Now, if you come back with me, you'll suffer less. If you continue to resist stubbornly, don't blame us for being heavy-handed."

"Heavy-handed?" The blonde-horned woman laughed suddenly, "Then you, a defeated general, are welcome to give it a try."

"I indeed lost to you by a slight margin at the Four Domains Youth Tournament last year, but that was a year ago. Even if you were uninjured now, you wouldn't necessarily be my match!" The Mountain Race man's voice was slightly subdued, opting not to take action in response to Priscilla's provocation, instead quietly waiting for his companions to form an encirclement. "As for your cheap provocation, it's long outdated. To evoke my spirit to seek an opening, using only the one hand you can still move, I'm afraid that's not enough."

He was all too familiar with this woman, Priscilla. If she could take action, she would never choose to argue.

The fact that she was speaking so much now was merely a ploy to find an opening to escape.

"That's why I call you a defeated general!"

As Priscilla spoke, a gentle smile appeared on her face, and suddenly she split into four afterimages, each charging in a different direction, making it impossible to discern which one was real.

"Phantom Step! You've mastered that person's ultimate skill?"

The Mountain Race man, watching the four afterimages breaking through toward his teammates, suddenly looked grim.

Phantom Step!

In the last Four Domains Youth Tournament, this Super Tier Step Technique had made an astonishing debut. Achieving the First Layer Perfection could create two nearly real afterimages, while the Second Layer Perfection could form four nearly real afterimages.

The runner-up of the last tournament had claimed the second place by achieving the Third Layer Perfection of Phantom Step, transforming into eight, and becoming the second person under thirty in the Four Domains.

He never expected Priscilla to not only learn it but master it.

And Priscilla, being originally a High Tier Martial Artist in the Extreme Bone Forging Realm, possessed strength enough to rival the Deputy City Lords of various major cities. Even though she was severely injured now, she still had the level of a near Top Level Bone Forging Realm expert, and his teammates were only just entering the High Tier Bone Forging Realm, unable to hold her in a one-on-one.

In just an instant, Priscilla had pierced through the encirclement of the Smiling Skull members, leaving them momentarily stunned and helplessly watching her escape.

"Damn! After her! She won't get far; this kind of Step Technique can't be maintained for long." The Mountain Race man shouted.

The other five members of the Smiling Skull snapped back to reality, following the Mountain Race man, employing High Tier Step Techniques to chase in the direction Priscilla fled.

Meanwhile, a kilometer away on a high ridge, Fang Zhen and his group were clearly observing this scene.

"There indeed are the Smiling Skull members the Hall Master mentioned. It seems this could very well be the trigger point of the event," Fang Zhen remarked as he watched Priscilla flee and the Smiling Skull members pursue her, "We've been searching for over a day without results, and yet you've only been here half a day, Judgement, and already discovered something. Comparing people really does grate on one's nerves."

"Since the event has already been triggered, we should act too." Chen Ya urged, "If we delay, other teams might also discover it, and by then there won't be enough NPCs to go around."

"Something's wrong! It looks like someone else is approaching the NPC!" Li Ranxing suddenly pointed out figures flitting through the forest in the distance.

"Those seem to be from Team Ye," Dark Judgment confirmed after glancing through a built-in binoculars, "It looks like they've also noticed the situation here."

"Since we've been noticed, we should hurry over as well. We can't let them snatch away the NPC we've only just found after so many days!" Fang Zhen, seeing Yiye Fuyun's group closing in on Priscilla, urgently rushed in Priscilla's direction.

Because of Chen Ya's briefing on the role of the quantum supercomputer over the past two days, many experts began using it for simulation and deduction, significantly lowering the difficulty of learning the Star Energy Construct Secret Technique, resulting in a surge of people entering the new map.

Now, the number of people entering the Wraith Mountain Range had reached over fourteen, making the competition very intense.

And seeing the members of Smiling Skull here made him somewhat envious.

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