The scorching canyon was littered with massive boulders everywhere, and thick black smoke drifted out from deep within the valley. Visibility with the naked eye was extremely limited — being able to see within a two-hundred-yard range was already good, and those with stronger physiques could only push that by another twenty or thirty yards. Only a Ranger's Hawk Eye skill could observe a range of seven or eight hundred yards.
Seven or eight hundred yards might sound like a fair distance, but against Deadlands monsters above level 70, it was alarmingly close. These creatures already had enormous perception ranges of four to five hundred yards, and due to the level gap, they could sense the aura of low-level players even more easily.
At seven or eight hundred yards, one wrong move could easily draw a monster's attention.
Shi Feng led the group forward and quickly reached a spot roughly two hundred yards from Si Yu Qingxuan and her team. Surrounded by rocks and drifting black smoke, they were difficult to detect.
"Isn't that Qingxuan?" Shui Se Qiangwei stared in surprise at Si Yu Qingxuan, who was in the thick of battle. "Her combat level has improved so much."
At this moment, Si Yu Qingxuan was single-handedly facing three level-70 Leader-rank Flame Demon guards beside the boss, and she wasn't losing ground at all. She held all three humanoid Flame Demons — their bodies wreathed in raging fire — at bay, allowing the others to focus entirely on the boss.
Her combat level had clearly reached the Realm of Subtlety.
However, compared to Si Yu Qingxuan's combat prowess, it was her teammates that truly surprised everyone.
These players weren't human — every single one of them belonged to a different race. They were either half-beasts with tiger ears and tails, or half-elves with pointed ears and snow-white skin.
"What's going on? They're not even human?" Huo Wu blurted out in shock.
The others were equally stunned.
As far as they knew, in the Divine Realm, players could only choose a single race — humans — with no other options available. They had encountered players who could transform into demons or monsters before, but those were transformations; the players were still human underneath.
But these players were different. Their displayed initial data didn't show them as the human race like transform-capable players did — their races were listed as half-beast and half-elf.
Among the group, only Shi Feng felt a mild sense of surprise, but found nothing strange about it.
Moreover, he finally understood why other players were still able to make their way to this place.
It was true that players in the Divine Realm initially only had one race — humans — with no other options. However, once they reached level 30, they could travel to neutral race territories and undertake conversion quests to become half-beasts or half-elves.
After becoming a half-beast or half-elf, while they gained certain racial abilities, they also abandoned their human identity and lost the blessing of being part of the Divine Realm's dominant race — making many things far more troublesome.
Because half-beasts and half-elves were neutral races, not all kingdoms and empires allowed them entry. Only a very few kingdoms and empires permitted it.
Even so, no shortage of expert players were willing to take that path.
Racial abilities were truly tempting. They might not enhance a player's base stats, but they provided massive boosts to physical capabilities. Half-beasts had movement speed, reflexes, and senses on par with wild beasts — natural-born warriors. Half-elves were favored by magic, making spellcasting far easier — natural-born mages.
These two races also shared another advantage — high resistance. This physical superiority was something human players simply couldn't match.
The places where these neutral races lived were anything but easy for human players to survive, which was why they could fight in this Deadlands with relative ease.