"A powerful opponent is not scary. What's scary is that cowardly heart that doesn't dare to face a challenge!"

— — White-headed Eagle Lankey

Inside a combat training room equipped with a new era's equipment, a man with short blond hair was repeatedly punching a golem with a fist wrapped in scarlet flames.

A puppet made of high-strength resin armor has good resistance, and even the flames on the fist have not been able to cause the doll to show a little burn marks.

Even though the temperature of this man's Crimson Fire had reached 600 degrees Celsius.

600 degrees Celsius Temperature was the symbol of a Fire Elemental Master of the third step.

The man in the punch was Saurun.

With all his might, he struck the golem one last time. The flame on his fist dissipated, and Saurun laid flat on the alloy floor in the shape of a person.

This was an underground fighting training room set up by the Parkland family's base. Saurun should have stayed in the Dark Council's Yongye City to train his Blood Cavalry Advanced Training Room.

The reason he stayed in the family was because of Saurun's previous failure of the mission, which resulted in him being suspended for a period of three months.

Leah's blood samples had been brought back to the Dark Council, and the three tubes were immediately accepted by the Council's Academy of Sciences for study.

But as Sauron had thought, he should have brought back a disordered specimen, Leah.

Due to Lia's death, the higher-ups of the Blood Cavalry recognized the mission as a failure due to Saurun's improper handling of the mission.

So now Sauron would be in the house, showing that it was a holiday, but it was a disguised punishment, as anyone knew.

During the three months he had been away from work, his competitors in the Blood Cavalry could make use of this period of emptiness.

This would lead to a series of unpredictable consequences. Now it was certain that not only was Saurun's position in the Blood Cavalry shaken, but he was also in the clan.

Thinking of this, Sauron remembered the golden eye.

How could he have ended up like this if he hadn't killed a zero in the middle of the road.

But the posture of Zero Rampage was still deeply engraved in Saurun's mind. Before he had forgotten about it, Sauron did not dare and did not want to come into contact with Zero again.

But the fact that Saurun did not want to touch Zero did not mean that he was willing to let him go.

In fact, he already had a target.

That person was Kabu's father, a sniper expert of the fifth step.

Saurun knew that when the other party found out that his son had died in Zero's hands, that person would definitely not let go of Zero.

Because that man had put all his efforts into Kabu.

It was a pity that the man nicknamed the White-headed Eagle had gone far away to a small Elk town after his retirement.

It is far from the coastline reclaimed after the Cataclysm and inconvenient to travel.

Even if Saurun had sent his entourage two months ago, it would have taken him only two days to reach Elk.

After obtaining this information and using some special means of transport, the White-headed Eagle would take at least ten days to get back.

But that didn't matter. As long as he could come back, Sauron imagined that the time of zero would not be far off.

Thinking of this, a faint smile appeared on Saurun's face once more.

The continent of China was very big. In the past fifty years after the catastrophe, under the development of the company and the nobles, many lands had returned to the embrace of civilization.

According to incomplete statistics, there are no more than one thousand colonies or bases on the continent in the form of civilization.

However, these large and small human populated areas only occupied a coastline from the east to the north of the continent.

However, nearly eighty percent of the way west to east of the continent was still unknown to the primordial chaos.

It was full of darkness and danger. Even the most powerful organization on the continent, the Dark Council, did not send that scarlet flag of the Blood Knights of the armed groups to the southwest.

There were too many unknowns there, too many ruins shrouded in savage darkness, and the light of civilization had not yet touched the forbidden land of life.

Therefore, Southwest of the earth is the adventurous paradise of various types of powerhouses.

Some people brought back priceless species or resources from this mysterious land, but most of them ended up being killed by mutants who roamed this land without being discovered, becoming food for them. Only the bones were left behind on this desolate land.

Sometimes, there were even no corpses.

But even so, there were still more people swarming into this unknown domain.

The Dark Council alone issued hundreds of related assignments through companies. Whether it was the Dark Council or some other financial power, their leaders were eager to spread the secrets of this land.

To them, the unknown represented a huge amount of undiscovered resources.

Elk Town.

This was a small town located at the edge of the south-western land. Before the catastrophe, the town was rich in forest resources, and there were large amounts of elk breeding in this town.

The inhabitants of the town lived by taming moose, which was why it was called Elk.

But after the Cataclysm, the elk either died, or mutated into a vicious species.

A large part of the forest was replaced by sand and stone. The huge wounds on the earth separated the small town from the mysterious south-west.

Until twenty years ago, a major of the Blood Knights had led a thousand soldiers to the town, reconstructing Elk Town and setting it up as a bridgehead to the southwest.

With the town as the base, the power source of the Dark Council spread to the southwest. In the last ten years alone, the Blood Knights had invested in a general, five major generals, a dozen major commanders, and hundreds of Blood Cavalry.

For the rest of the development, this power is enough to destroy all known chaebol and colonies along the coastline.

It can be put into the southwest development of the earth, but it is like a stone sinking into the sea.

They seemed to disappear, never to return to Elk.

So the Dark Council changed its policy and opened Elk to the rest of the mainland.

Whether it was individuals or organisations, as long as they paid a certain fee, they could enter Elk Town to replenish their supplies.

But all who ventured into the Southwest must acquiesce in a contract that did not exist in any paper medium, and that was to fulfill the duty of charting a map for the Dark Council.

From the moment he stepped into Elk Town, any adventurer of any status would tacitly agree to the reasonableness of the contract.

If you don't, it's not as simple as being thrown out of town.

Whether it was individuals or organizations, the Dark Council would retaliate with terror.

Two years before the contract had begun, hundreds of Adept blood had established its irrefutable position.

Therefore, at this point, no one was foolish enough to challenge the authority of the Dark Council, as well as the power of the Blood Knights.

As long as there were adventurers, there would definitely be a tavern.

This was almost common sense, and Elk was no exception.

The only tavern in the town, "Dragon and Beauty", was run by the Dark Council. The cost of the wine and service here was more than ten times that of other taverns on the continent.

If not for the fact that the tavern was run by the Dark Council and that a Blood Cavalry Captain was stationed there all year round, the tavern would have long been torn apart by the angry adventurers.

Now, the adventurers naturally had to silently endure the exploitation of Parliament.

Of course, coming to the pub to drink and have fun was voluntary, and the Dark Council will not put a knife around your neck to force you to consume.

However, there were very few adventurers who did not like alcohol. Even though the tavern was full of inferior goods that were mixed with alcohol and water, there were still adventurers who liked it.

And even if you don't like to drink, there's no denying that taverns are an important place to gather information.

You don't have to drink, but you don't want to lose information.

To enter the southwest without any information was like stripping one's clothes off and walking beside a ferocious beast. No one would be willing to do such a thing.

The first source of information was exchange, the second was purchase.

There are adventurers selling the intelligence, but the most precise and most valuable one is only available for sale by the tavern's boss, who is also the Dark Council.

Of course, you don't have to expect to buy information above rank 3 in the tavern. These are all secrets of the Dark Council, and can't be bought even with money.

Recently, however, an adventurer had been peddling information in the tavern.

Even though this information wasn't enough to deal with the information that the Dark Council didn't sell, it was still much more valuable than the information sold by other explorers or the tavern itself.

Many adventurers had already bought precious information from the man's mouth, and brought back items that were several times more valuable than the information itself. Then, they happily left Elk Town.

In the eyes of the adventurers, they were all lucky fellows.

They might have been moved by other adventurers on the way back, but once they returned to the base that was protected by the basic rules, those items would be enough to keep them safe for the rest of their lives.

Therefore, more and more people lined up to buy information from this adventurer with money in their hands, and this person's name also appeared on the computer on the Blood Cavalry Captain's tactical board in the tavern.

This man's name was Lanqi, and he had the nickname of White-headed Eagle.

His ability was a fifth step sniper, and in his first half of his life, he served Parkland, the marginal tycoon of the Dark Council.

It was only five years ago that he left the Parkland plutocrat and ventured alone into the Southwest.

In five years, he'd had very little access to Elk, and it wasn't until a month ago that he'd started selling all sorts of information.

The captain of the Crimson Knight looked at the silver-haired black man on the tactical board. He waved his hand and threw his information into the folder.

An adventurer selling information was not worth his while, and the captain was only interested in how long he would stay in this place before he was called back to the Blood Horse.

Elk Town was indeed an important stronghold for the Dark Council. Even if the Blood Cavalry, who could be sent here, did not have any achievements, when they returned they would still increase their contribution points according to the length of their stay, in order to raise their rank.

However, that was only for the Blood Cavalry in the combat system.

In a semi-retired position like the captain, he was still a captain when he got back.

Even with the additional contribution points, it was far from enough for him to become a major.

While the captain was vexed about his future, the white-headed eagle reappeared in the tavern.

But this was the last time he would appear in the tavern.

For soon he would receive a message that he would have to leave Elk.