"In a hurry?"

Vishdair ran alongside Lin Guang and asked, noticing the expression on his face.

"Quite urgent, I'm worried..."

She suddenly flashed a mischievous smile: "You should have said so earlier."

"Yikes!"

With a startled cry from the girl, Vishdair suddenly scooped up Lisa, who had been running alongside them, and with another hand, picked up Lin Guang. She held them under her arms, continuing to run as if unaffected.

Soon after, a red glow seeped from her body, enveloping all three of them.

[Status: Beast Soul Awakening.]

Without breaking her stride, she took a deep breath, her gaze becoming focused: "Amplify me!"

"Reckless as always..."

Held tightly, Lin Guang sighed, feeling the fierce wind rushing past—indeed much faster than running on his own.

He hesitated not, his gaze also steadying, activating the Talent Blessing for Vishdair.

"Hahahahahahaha!"

In the next moment, her spirit surged, flames erupted beneath her feet, and she transformed into a scarlet streak, racing towards the signal source with Lin Guang and Lisa.

Lisa exclaimed in amazement: "Wow wow wow wow—"

She agilely dodged all obstacles in their path, and the magical beasts along the way couldn't keep up, merely letting her streak past.

After about three minutes, Vishdair suddenly decelerated, her legs sliding on the ground, creating two long trenches.

"We're here, look ahead!"

Slightly dizzy, Lin Guang and Lisa were just set down to steady themselves, and upon hearing, they looked up to see Lv Rui rushing towards them through the dark mist.

She appeared somewhat disheveled, her hair damp with sweat, a few scratches from branches on her body, her eyes flashing with white light as she clearly activated her talent and spirit patterns.

Meanwhile, the Fire Spirit Eagle was in the sky behind her, entangled in battle with a swarm of vampire bats like a black cloud, fighting as it retreated. Although each bat wasn't particularly strong, they were numerous, and the Fire Spirit Eagle's fiery yellow feathers were occasionally bitten off, looking quite battered.

"Lisa."

"Got it!"

Lisa patted her cheeks, grabbed the air with both hands, and golden particles gathered to form a heavy magic staff.

She gripped the staff tightly, aiming its tip at the vampire bats, channeling and concentrating pale pink spiritual ether onto the staff, which then roared out.

Boom—

In an instant, the thick cloud-like swarm of vampire bats in the sky was blasted open by the "Spirit Strong Thought," with innards and bone fragments turning into a black-red blood rain on the ground.

Lisa didn't pause, taking a deep breath, her eyes also burning with dark gold.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

In a flash, four more waves of pink energy erupted from the densest area of the bats, visibly reducing the flock by a third.

Receiving support, Lv Rui clearly regained vigor: "Huo'Er! [Bath of Fire Shock]!"

"Screech—"

The Fire Spirit Eagle let out a long cry, its body suddenly igniting in fierce flames, circling once to drive back all the vampire bats around, then fearlessly charged into the bat swarm, bursting into dazzling radiance, causing the enemies to fall like dumplings.

With the group severely reduced, the vampire bat king hidden among them couldn't bear it anymore and revealed itself.

Its wings spanned five to six meters long, menacing in appearance. Opening its large mouth to unleash a skill, it was directly hit by Lisa's sixth Spirit Strong Thought, its gaze suddenly frozen.

And at that instant.

Bang!!!

A vermillion bullet streaked across the sky, striking the vampire bat king's head directly, exploding violently.

[Your partner Lisa has defeated a White Level 16 enemy, Star Shards progress bar increased.]

[Your partner Lisa has defeated a White Level 15 enemy, Star Shards progress bar increased.]

[Your partner Lisa has defeated a Green Level 13 enemy, Star Shards progress bar increased.]

[...]

[Your partner Vishdair has defeated a Blue Level 24 enemy, Star Shards progress bar increased.]

With the leader eliminated, the vampire bats fell into chaos, soon cleaned up by Lisa's Spirit Strong Thought, with just two or three small ones escaping by luck.

Even after wiping out this massive swarm of vampire bats, Lin Guang still couldn't fully fill the Star Shards progress bar.

However, after entering this secret realm, he relied on hunting an endless stream of magical beasts and had already obtained 2 star shards.

Lin Guang was quite satisfied with this rate.

After all, star shards are hard to obtain once you pass the novice stage, and hunting wild spirit beasts (magical beasts) with a significant power gap is not the most orthodox way to farm star shards. The fastest method is always to find a strong enemy, fight with all your might, and defeat them.

"Huff... huff... thank you..."

Lv Rui ran to Lin Guang's side, hands on her knees, gasping heavily. It seemed like she had been chased by this group of vampire bats for quite a distance.

Lin Guang raised his hand and took out a bottle of Refreshing Soda from the spatial spiritual artifact and handed it to the panting Lv Rui.

Lv Rui took the soda, gulped it down in a few big gulps, and after gasping for a while, she finally caught her breath and straightened up.

Seeing Lisa, still composed and not showing much sign of fatigue, Lv Rui's eyes were filled with surprise that couldn't be hidden: "Is this your new partner? She's amazing. She must have at least purple legendary-level potential, right? What level is she?"

Lisa nodded slightly and greeted politely, "Hello, Sister Lv Rui, my name is Lisa."

"Ah, hello."

Subconsciously, Lv Rui responded, then widened her eyes, with a look of surprise.

"She has abilities in the spiritual element and is eager to learn, so she learns quickly."

"You're speaking as if I can't speak." Vishdair suddenly inserted into the conversation with slightly awkward Daxia language.

"Alright, alright, you're great too."

"Why are you treating me like a child!"

"It's your misunderstanding."

"I don't have misunderstandings!"

"Uh, it's not good to argue..."

"..."

Watching the three interacting, Lv Rui smiled wryly, "You guys are so relaxed, it's like you're on a picnic."

But then she sighed again: "Maybe I shouldn't have chosen the purple level, just a group of vampire bats made me so embarrassed."

"Don't belittle yourself. The Fire Spirit Eagle is already impressive. It's just that without a contract with a second spirit beast, it's hard to handle situations alone. If Wang Dawei were here to support, it would be much better..."

Saying this, Lin Guang raised his eyebrow slightly, "Speaking of which, where is he?"

It's already the third day, and both Lv Rui and Wang Dawei have tracking spiritual artifacts. It's hard to imagine they still haven't met up.

At the mention of this, Lv Rui's face showed a slight complex expression, and she said somewhat dejectedly, "Wang Dawei was captured by Huai Shouren while covering my breakout."

"There were many of them, not just Huai Shouren. Surrounded and intercepted, we had no choice but to do this."

Lin Guang was slightly taken aback, then rubbed his temples with a bit of headache: "As expected."

He knew that Huai Shouren would indeed target people he knew.

Luckily, Lin Guang had made early plans for this situation.

"...He should not have been eliminated, right?"

"No." After a pause, Lv Rui added, "At least before I left the perceptive range of the spiritual artifact, he hadn't been eliminated. Your strategy seemed to have worked."

After agreeing on the strategy to meet using tracking spiritual artifacts, Lin Guang came up with a tactic: if both were unfortunate enough to encounter Huai Shouren or aristocratic heirs willing to please Huai Shouren and couldn't escape, they could propose a 'deal' with the opponent.

As long as Huai Shouren doesn't eliminate them, Lin Guang is willing to accompany any point of duel Huai Shouren proposes.

After all, if Huai Shouren is targeting Lv Rui and Wang Dawei, it is undoubtedly to defeat or even humiliate Lin Guang personally, which should be effective.

"It's good that he hasn't been eliminated." Lin Guang nodded slightly, "You still remember the direction, right?"

Lv Rui nodded, pointed in a direction, and was about to get up and lead Lin Guang forward.

Suddenly, Lin Guang extended his hand to stop her and instead handed over plenty of supplies, including a few Tier Three Ethereal Crystals for the Fire Spirit Eagle—though not as effective as potions, directly consuming ethereal crystals can restore the ether inside the body.

Lv Rui took these supplies and looked at Lin Guang, who was turning to continue distributing resources to Vishdair and Lisa, a bit puzzled: "?"

"No rush, recuperate fully before we go."

"But... Wang Dawei..."

Placing a handful of spiritual ether crystals in Lisa's small hand, Lin Guang turned around and looked calmly at Lv Rui: "I'm one hundred percent certain, as long as Wang Dawei wasn't eliminated when you left, Huai Shouren won't make a move before I get there—because he must be fully aware that if he doesn't have a hostage, I have no reason to meet him."

Lin Guang gazed into the distance, the direction Lv Rui had just pointed to, pushed his glasses, with a faint smile on his face, eyes flashing with cold dark golden light.

"And the current reality is, he's scratching his ears, thinking day and night, urgently begging for a fight with me."

"In other words..."

"He's the challenger."

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