In front of the Silent Forest dungeon, an ever-growing crowd of Level 2 players had gathered, and parties heading into the dungeon came and went in a steady stream.
With so many Level 2 players showing up, quite a few had set up stalls on the side, hawking their wares.
"Top-quality Level 0 common gear — don't miss out! You need good equipment to tackle the Silent Forest. Limited stock, so grab yours now!"
"Small Health Recovery Potion — restores 90 HP in an instant. A must-have for combat. You deserve it!"
The Divine Domain had been open for over ten hours by now, and everyone present was a high-level Level 2 player. After ten-plus hours of fighting, plenty of good loot had dropped. Many players wanted to sell off what they didn't need and trade for something useful, which was why business around the Silent Forest was absolutely booming.
But even though more and more players kept piling up in front of the dungeon, fewer and fewer groups were actually organizing runs. Only the ignorant newcomers were still putting together parties to enter.
After getting thoroughly schooled by the Silent Forest, though, those newcomers suddenly realized how naive they'd been. They obediently planted themselves outside the dungeon, chatting with other parties about life, watching new groups walk in with amusement, and picking the brains of veteran teams who'd already attempted the run — all to piece together a better strategy.
Wave after wave of players threw themselves in and died. Eventually, the Silent Forest became the bane of every player in Red Leaf Town.
Every player who'd set foot inside shared the same impression: It's terrifying!
At that moment, six pillars of light flashed at the Silent Forest's resurrection cemetery, and six figures materialized.
"This dungeon is straight-up unplayable! Qingxue, let's just go grind mobs and do quests instead," Zhao Yueru said the moment she respawned. Her chest heaved with frustration as she stamped her cute little foot in a fit of pique, drawing the attention of a whole crowd of male players.
Bai Qingxue shook her head and said thoughtfully, "Our haul from the Silent Forest was actually pretty decent — we can't give up that easily. But the forest is way too vast, and there are tons of winding paths inside. Without a map, it's easy to get lost. That said, I'd bet that among all those trails, a few actually lead to the boss, while the rest are traps designed to mislead us. That's why we keep getting ambushed by the Night Hares, and the more we fight, the more show up. For now, let's gather some intel and see if we can put together a better map of the dungeon."
Everyone felt that Bai Qingxue's reasoning made sense. Especially since when they'd been fighting the Night Hares, arrows kept sneaking out of the woods to snipe their healer, Xiaoyue'er. If she hadn't been skilled enough to dodge, they'd have been wiped out long ago.
And the deeper they ventured into the forest, the more Night Hares appeared. In the end, the sheer numbers were just too overwhelming to handle, and they'd been forced to die their way back out. If they could find the right path, they might have actually cleared it.
Zhao Yueru had no choice but to nod in agreement. After all, Qingxue was the team leader, and her guesses were spot-on every time — who was she to argue?
And so Bai Qingxue and Zhao Yueru casually called out a few times, announcing they wanted to trade Silent Forest intel.
And when two gorgeous women made that kind of announcement, the effect was nothing short of explosive. Every player in the area went into a frenzy, sprinting over to be the first in line.
For the countless male players, this was a golden chance to talk to a goddess. Who knew — maybe she'd take a liking to them, and they'd get to live a "happy" life down the road.
Deep within the hell-difficulty Silent Forest, the world had plunged into darkness. Thousands of birds scattered in panic, and an eerie silence blanketed everything.
The werewolf Felot was no ordinary mob. He was a notorious lycanthrope who had once slaughtered his way through Red Leaf Town, nearly turning it into a ghost town. The Star Moon Kingdom had dispatched an entire army to bring him down in a rage. In the end, Felot was gravely wounded by Swordmaster Hilton and fled into the Silent Forest to recover — which was how the dungeon had come into existence.
On hell difficulty, Felot boasted three devastating abilities. The first was Death Gaze — any enemy caught in his stare would suffer crippling reductions to both attack speed and movement speed. Those with weak willpower might not be able to move at all.
Aside from Shi Feng, whose agility hit a staggering 30 points and who had activated three hidden basic skills, granting him some resistance to the Death Gaze, everyone else's reactions would become sluggish.
So Shi Feng had been keeping the werewolf occupied while Sleepy Sloth frantically healed him, though his casting speed had been cut nearly in half. The melee fighters couldn't help at all — not because they didn't want to, but because there was simply nothing they could do. Felot's attack speed was too fast, far beyond their ability to react. It was like a duel between martial arts masters in a wuxia novel; ordinary people had no business getting involved.