The sun was setting in the west, the sky gradually darkening.
This should have been the time when countless office workers headed home after work, but the Zero Wing headquarters building was brightly lit. Compared to the surrounding buildings, it was far more bustling with people coming and going.
In front of the building, there was even a queue of young men and women waiting to register for Zero Wing, lining up for the guild's basic entrance tests.
And in front of the lively Zero Wing building, dozens of people dressed in various outfits and from different backgrounds suddenly appeared. Each one quietly observed everything about Zero Wing, filled with curiosity about the headquarters.
"So this is Zero Wing's headquarters?" A young man with a few freckles on his face looked at the young people queuing for the tests and said with undisguised disdain, "I really don't know what the team leader was thinking, suddenly ordering us to come to Zero Wing's headquarters to train and exercise for a while. Sure, Zero Wing's guild strength in the Divine Realm is formidable."
"But as for people who could truly be called top-tier experts, there aren't really many. Even among those trying to join Zero Wing, quite a few are obviously complete newbies—their combat level probably can't even clear the third floor of the Trial Tower. And they want us to come here for training..."
No one else present objected to the young man's dismissive words—they clearly agreed with what he said.
Those among them who had joined an adventure team were, for the most part, the type who hated being constrained. They also held great disdain for members of major guilds, because those guild members were nothing but bullies who picked on the weak and relied on numerical advantage. True experts were few and far between among them.
Any one of them present could easily become a core member of a major guild if they wanted to—even the super guilds were no exception.
They had all forged their combat skills in the Divine Realm without any background or resources, fighting through battles with powerful bosses and various open-world PK encounters, risking their lives to hone their techniques. They were nothing like the pampered flowers cultivated in the greenhouses of those guilds.
Moreover, their real-world combat abilities were extremely formidable—far surpassing the martial arts champions who won various awards on television. This was why they felt that coming to Zero Wing to train was a complete waste of time.
The middle-aged man at the front, whose face bore a burn scar, glanced at the freckled young man and said coldly, "Enough! Tiantong! This is an order from the team leader. If we don't come, we'll be expelled from the team. Do you want to be expelled?"
At the words of this fierce-looking man in black, the freckled young man named Chi Tong dared not make any more complaints. He shut his mouth and turned away—though clearly unhappy, he didn't dare disobey the man in black.
The rest of the team watched silently, not daring to voice any opinions.
Because this middle-aged man in black was not only the vice-leader of their Eternal Glory adventure team, Crimson Face, but also the strongest member of the team—so strong that even if the entire team combined, including team leader Ji Luorong, they could barely fight him to a standstill.
On the Western Continent, he was known to many as the Crimson Face Demon!
The name came from an incident when the middle-aged man in black had charged alone into a map sealed off by an army of ten thousand to save his trapped companions. That army was no ordinary force—it contained over a thousand third-tier experts alone. Yet in the end, the entire army of ten thousand was completely routed, and not a single one of them left that map alive...
From that single battle, the name "Crimson Face Demon" spread throughout the Eternal Glory adventure team, making life much easier for them in the open world.
As for the man in black's real-world identity, he was no ordinary person either. He had once been a top-tier bodyguard in the industry, sought after by numerous world-class financial groups for employment. For reasons unknown, he had suddenly quit bodyguarding to become a full-time player, devoting himself entirely to the virtual reality game Divine Realm. Joining the then-weak Eternal Glory adventure team had been entirely accidental.
Crimson Face nodded as the group fell silent and led them straight toward the entrance hall.
Just as Crimson Face and the others stepped into the ground-floor lobby, a graceful woman in sportswear with shoulder-length short hair walked over. The core member badge pinned to her sports jacket indicated her status within Zero Wing.
The appearance of this sportswearing graceful woman caused the Eternal Glory team members to instinctively tense up. Crimson Face, in particular, wore a grave expression as he looked at her.
It wasn't for any particular reason—it was simply that this woman's presence and sense of pressure were overwhelmingly strong. Though she emitted no visible aura of power, for some inexplicable reason, she filled them with an unspeakable tension and heaviness.
For ordinary people, this might have gone unnoticed. But they were different. Having experienced countless narrow escapes and life-and-death battles in the Divine Realm, their mental intuition had long since surpassed that of ordinary people. If something could make them feel this tense inside, it was absolutely not something an ordinary person could achieve.
Crimson Face carefully studied the graceful woman before him, secretly estimating his odds if he were to fight her. But after careful observation, he was surprised to find that his chances were at most forty to fifty percent—and that was only because his physical constitution gave him an advantage.
"Could she be Fire Dance, the leader of Zero Wing's main team?"
Crimson Face looked at the graceful woman, and the only explanation he could think of was this—otherwise, there was no way to explain the immense mental pressure she radiated.
"You must be members of the Eternal Glory adventure team." Turtledove glanced at the group and said with a smile. "You can call me Turtledove. I've already heard from the guild leader about your situation. Since you've come to Zero Wing, consider it your home from now on. Rooms have been arranged for all of you upstairs—you can go rest anytime."
With that, Turtledove led Crimson Face and the others toward the elevator to the rest area.
"Turtledove?"
Crimson Face and the others looked at Turtledove, who was leading the way, their eyes full of surprise. Crimson Face, in particular—before coming to Zero Wing, he had thoroughly investigated the guild's top experts, but none of them were called Turtledove.