Chapter 409: Chapter 379: Qingfeng Ridge

It didn’t matter what that member of Dongning’s team thought. Call him stubborn, call him unreasonable; regardless, there were certain principles Li Qian would not abandon.

"Alright, if you want to leave, then go. I won’t stop you." Li Qian waved a hand and started walking back. He ordered Qizai and Xiaoliu to carry the other Pet Beasts and Beast Masters.

Just as Li Qian started walking back, two people from Dongning’s team—the young man who had just spoken and another slick-looking young man—leaped onto their Flying Pet Beasts.

"You..." Seeing this, Susu instantly realized what the two of them were doing and cried out in rebuke.

"Susu, let them go." Dongning’s expression was grim. She looked at Susu, then glanced at the two team members preparing to leave and spoke with a frown.

Hearing this, Susu fell silent, but it was clear she was still furious.

The two young men paused when they heard Dongning, knowing in their hearts that this departure would mean severing all ties.

’But in a life-or-death crisis, who could blame us? What did we do wrong? We just want to live.’

With a beat of their wings, the two Flying Pet Beasts soared high into the sky, and their riders’ figures soon vanished over the horizon.

"The four of us are leaving, too," Li Kun said, walking over with a complicated tone.

Hearing this, Lu Tianjiao nearly lost his temper and burst out, "You guys too?!"

Li Qian also shot them a questioning look. Although they hadn’t known each other long, he could tell that Li Kun and Ferich weren’t the type to be disloyal.

Ferich walked over, patted Li Qian’s shoulder, and said meaningfully, "It’s not that we don’t want to fight alongside you. It’s that staying with us might be even more dangerous for you!"

Ferich’s words made Li Qian’s pupils contract. He suddenly seemed to realize something. Cupping his hands in a fist-and-palm salute, he said, "In that case... let’s part ways here. Farewell, until we meet again!"

"Until we meet again!" Ferich and Li Kun returned the salute. Then, they too mounted their Flying Pet Beasts and left.

Zhou Yuanhao, completely baffled, asked, "Li Qian, why did you..."

Li Qian knew what he was asking. He shook his head and replied, "Don’t read too much into it. Sticking with them wouldn’t necessarily have been a good thing."

"Besides, if they were determined to leave, we couldn’t have stopped them."

Bai Bingbing seemed to have realized something as well, nodding in agreement. "So, what do we do now?"

Li Qian glanced at his watch, then at the students scattered haphazardly on the ground, and sighed. "There’s an outpost about fifty kilometers from here called Qingfeng Ridge. Let’s go there to rest."

"Alright!" The others nodded. With a plan in place, they didn’t hesitate and immediately got to work.

After ordering their Pet Beasts to carry the injured students and other beasts, the group proceeded toward Qingfeng Ridge at a measured pace.

According to the map, their location was only about fifty kilometers from Qingfeng Ridge—not too far. And that proved to be true; it only took them a little over ten minutes to arrive outside the outpost.

After presenting their identification, the group filed into the outpost. It resembled a small town, not covering a large area.

However, upon entering, they found it was surprisingly crowded. In addition to the garrison of Beast Masters stationed there, there were also many Adventurers and several other teams of new students from the freshman challenge.

None of them looked to be in high spirits, which was to be expected under the circumstances.

Something had gone wrong in the entire Mo Yuan City region. By now, if it wasn’t common knowledge, it was close to it.

This was especially true for the freshmen in the challenge; many of them had narrowly escaped death to get here.

Not long after they entered Qingfeng Ridge, while they were still resting, a middle-aged man in snug black attire approached them.

"Students," the middle-aged man began, "you must all be freshmen participating in the challenge. I’m sure you have some idea of the current situation, even without me spelling it out."

"My name is Situ Jie," he continued, "and I have the honor of being the Garrison Captain of Qingfeng Ridge. I’d like to invite you to join in the coming battle to defend this outpost."

"Join the battle to defend the outpost? With just our group, isn’t that a bit..." Li Qian stepped forward as their representative to speak with Situ Jie.

He didn’t finish the sentence, but his meaning was obvious.

It was suicidal, a fool’s errand.

"You don’t need to worry about that, student," Situ Jie explained. "Under normal circumstances, a deep-level Dimensional Rift that opens up suddenly can’t sustain itself for long."

"In my experience, they usually last for three days at most. After that, those beasts will leave on their own!"

Situ Jie spoke with conviction, and Li Qian believed him. ’But how do we survive those three days?’ he thought.

Three days sounded simple enough, but enduring them would be anything but. There were hundreds of thousands of skeletons and Flame Corpses out there.

Even if only a fraction of that horde came this way, it would be more than enough to overwhelm them.

But since they were stuck here for now, Li Qian could only agree. After all, if the nest falls, no egg survives. If Qingfeng Ridge couldn’t hold out, they wouldn’t be able to escape their fate either.

Shortly after Li Qian agreed to Situ Jie’s request, the Garrison Captain had supplies delivered—mostly recovery potions and the like.

"Well, looks like we’ve been conscripted," Yan Qiuyang said, looking at the potion in his hand with a wry smile.

"Haha... this is actually a pretty good situation. If we were still out there, who knows if we’d still be..." Zhou Yuanhao tried to make a joke, but it fell flat. He trailed off and shut his mouth awkwardly.

The atmosphere turned awkward. After a while, Dongning suddenly spoke, her voice full of apology, "I’m sorry, about what happened before..."

"It’s fine," Li Qian replied calmly, knowing what she was apologizing for. "It’s only natural they’d make that choice under those circumstances..."

He genuinely felt it was just human nature.

"Besides, to be honest, choosing to head back to Mo Yuan City right now might not be such a good thing for them anyway."

Even though Li Qian said that, the apologetic look on Dongning’s face didn’t lessen.

That night, as Li Qian and the others were resting in the temporary quarters Situ Jie had arranged, a piercing alarm suddenly blared.

The group startled awake. Without waiting for someone to come get them, they shot out of their lodgings and up onto the outpost walls.

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