“You’re a newcomer, so don’t rush out hunting for points just yet. There’s time to accumulate them — the most important thing, always, is keeping your war beast alive. Once your war beast dies, that’s a catastrophe you may never recover from. Here in the camp, we can’t offer much, but we can provide enough food and basic medicine free of charge. If you find yourself with surplus supplies down the road, a donation to help those in need is always welcome… Our Angel Alliance has always been suppressed by the Dark Alliance for lack of powerful challengers. In both numbers and strength, we simply can’t match them. If we don’t stay united and support each other, all of us challengers who share the same stake in this will find ourselves in serious danger.”

“Newcomer, whatever wariness you might have toward strangers, I hope you can set some of it aside for now. Try to take advice from some of the more experienced people in the Angel Alliance, focus on keeping your strength intact, keep your main war beast alive, keep the hope of eventually clearing this gate alive — contribute what you can against the Dark Alliance, and meanwhile build toward your own eventual success in a planned, steady way…”

The man who called himself Mark had apparently read Yue Yang as the type who didn’t trust others easily.

His expression was completely genuine as he laid out the situation with explanatory gestures, doing his best to make a convincing case.

Yue Yang wasn’t exactly easy to persuade — but Mark’s words stirred something in him nonetheless.

With his Heaven’s Eye and extraordinary sensitivity, he could tell at a glance whether someone in front of him was lying or playing some subtle game.

And there was none of that here.

Mark wasn’t lying. He hadn’t put on a false face to deceive Yue Yang. Everything he’d said was genuine.

Maybe it was the overwhelming pressure of a deeply unfavorable situation. Maybe it was something particular to Mark or to Camp 1385’s people — a kind of sincerity that had survived when it hadn’t elsewhere. Whatever the reason, what Mark said came from the heart.

Being able to speak truthfully at all was no small thing. Being able to speak truthfully about offering free assistance to newcomers, about genuine mutual aid — that was rarer still.

Yue Yang found himself thinking that while Mark’s strength wasn’t anything remarkable, his treatment of newcomers was genuinely decent.

Among everyone Yue Yang had encountered.

That was something worth noting.

It was also, now that he thought about it, the first time since entering the Trial Grounds that he’d met someone who spoke with this kind of sincerity. He genuinely didn’t know how a person like this had managed to survive in here.

“Thank you. I think I’ll take some time to learn about our side and the enemy’s situation first, put together a plan, and then think about points.” Yue Yang gave an answer that was half-genuine, half-deflection. He really did intend to gather information and plan — not for the fight against the Dark Alliance, but for the Heavens-Splitting Demon Lord sealed inside the hidden Demon God Hall. Points weren’t something he was taking seriously in their own right. He’d simply settled on one target: push Ji Wuri’s shameless score back down where it belonged and make sure that man couldn’t keep gloating about his grinding exploit.

“Our camp captain hasn’t returned yet. When he does, you can put in a newcomer aid request with him. Generally, newcomers can receive a Sky-rank war beast as early support, or if you’re feeling confident, you can request two war beast eggs with Sky-rank potential. In here, points are everything — then war beasts.” Mark handed Yue Yang a small map, a sheepskin chart with detailed markings of dozens of notable locations within the surrounding thousand square kilometers.

“How many points do you get for killing a Sky-rank war beast?” Yue Yang suddenly remembered he’d never asked.

“You didn’t ask the guide at the entrance?” Mark nearly did a double take. A newcomer who walked in without finding that out first?

“He wanted to charge for it.” Yue Yang’s reasoning was simple: saving money.

“It’s only one sixth-grade gem…” Mark had run out of things to say about Yue Yang’s stinginess. He’d held back intelligence this critical over one gem?

“Ahem, I — I didn’t have the money on me!” Yue Yang was furious on the inside. If he’d known it was that cheap, he’d have gritted his teeth and paid it without a second thought. That shameless old man hadn’t mentioned the price clearly, leaving Yue Yang to assume it was expensive — and it turned out to be worth only a single sixth-grade gem. Of course, no matter how irritated he felt internally, his expression showed nothing — he kept playing up the broke-newcomer act without missing a beat.

“Not even one sixth-grade gem.” Not just Mark — every down-on-their-luck challenger-looking figure scattered around the camp turned toward Yue Yang with sympathetic eyes. They understood that newcomer challengers were often poor. But they’d never quite imagined anyone being poor on this scale.

“It’s fine — in the Demon Valley world, gems aren’t the currency of choice anyway. It’s all barter here. What people actually want are supplements that boost war beast potential or strength — things like Wisdom Fruit or Wisdom Leaves, which are worth a fortune here, more money than you could possibly name. There are many ways to develop war beasts, and because needs vary, the king-tier challengers here generally trade rare and precious items to get what they need — it’s faster and more efficient for raising war beasts. Beyond barter, you can also take on tasks that others post here, earning points or trading for items you need.” Mark gave a thorough explanation, doing his job as deputy captain with evident care. He circled back to the points question Yue Yang had raised: “Sky-rank war beasts come in several different point values.”

“Sky-rank tier one war beasts, for example, are extremely common here — practically everywhere you look. Killing ten thousand of them earns one point. Tier two, one thousand kills per point. Following that pattern: tier three, one hundred kills per point; tier four, ten per point; tier five, one point per kill.”

“Once you’ve accumulated a hundred points, you can enter the transport portal beneath the first Angel Statue at Camp One, pass the verification, and transfer out. As for me personally, my chances of leaving are fairly slim — three thousand-plus years of accumulation and I’ve managed barely twenty points. My strongest war beast’s potential is nearly exhausted, and my own strength has hit its ceiling. Leaving is probably not in the cards… I sincerely hope you can bring out your war beast’s full potential, clear the Demon Valley trial, and go out there on behalf of all of us old-timers who’ll likely never leave — whose descendants are fated to become native inhabitants — and see the free sky for yourself…”

By the time Mark finished speaking, both he and the other challengers with their battered mercenary appearances

wore expressions that had turned just a little dim.

Another group of people longing for freedom.

Yue Yang understood their feelings better than most. Freedom was like that — something you could go completely numb to when you had it. But the moment it was taken away, you understood it had been the most precious thing in the world all along.

This was something the ancients had understood since time immemorial — which was why, for the most heinous criminals, the punishment of choice had always been sealing rather than execution. The suffering produced by imprisoning someone’s freedom was, in truth, far greater than simply killing them. It was the punishment that actually meant something. Countless desperate criminals feared death not at all — but sealing, they were absolutely terrified of.

“How often do the two factions have a full decisive battle — every year, or what?” Yue Yang asked.

“In theory, every three months. Every three months, the native inhabitants open all the checkpoints and allow full contact between challenger forces on both sides.” Mark let out a small sigh. “In practice, anyone with enough strength can come and kill at any time — which means wherever we are, there’s always a chance of danger at any moment… Keep your war beast protected, especially your strongest one. Whatever happens, don’t let the enemy kill it. Make sure it survives to the end. For challengers at our strength level, anyone powerful enough to come in and start massacring people won’t bother with our lives — just focus on making sure they can’t casually wipe out your war beast.”

“If things get bad, you can always go train in the underground passages for a while.” Someone offered this suggestion.

“There are thousands of ancient passages underground, a dense maze of them — some running several thousand kilometers, some impossibly mysterious, direction unknown. They have ancient monsters in them, but compared to Dark Alliance challengers, the danger level is relatively lower. And if a war beast dies down there, you don’t lose any points.” Someone else chimed in.

“Watch out, though — some Dark Alliance challengers disguise their war beasts as ancient monsters and wait for us to go down there to train, then ambush war beasts for easy points.”

“Stick to group movement at the start — though familiarizing yourself with the terrain on your own first is fine too.”

“Get at least three war beasts: one main, one support, one in reserve.”

Mark and his companions, thoroughly enthusiastic, gave their detailed briefing on Demon Valley’s ins and outs to the “broke” Yue Yang who’d supposedly been unable to afford the entrance guide’s information fee.

Whether or not any of their advice would actually apply to his situation.

Yue Yang thanked each of them in turn.

It really was something remarkable — genuinely sincere allies, here in Demon Valley of all places. Compared to the Desire Valley and Beast Valley gates, this world was like night and day. The situation here was harsher, the difficulty steeper — but the ancient law’s influence on this place had produced an unexpected effect. Rather than the purely negative, everyone-against-everyone atmosphere of the earlier gates, there was a real thread of something positive here too.

“Any war beast being killed means minus a hundred points?” Yue Yang asked, making sure of something.

“No — only killing the main war beast, the one wearing the Angel Emblem, triggers the point deduction. If a support war beast is killed, the challenger loses no points — though the main war beast’s strength will be weakened, possibly seriously injured. As for the enemy, even killing a support war beast earns them a small number of points, generally about one percent of what killing a main war beast would give, though it varies a little by strength.” Mark answered with complete clarity.

“How many challengers does the Dark Alliance have?” Yue Yang asked his final question.

“A hundred thousand — if not quite that, close to it.” Mark thought it over, then added, “Our side, after Ji Wuri’s slaughter and Zhonghua’s scheming, went from over eighty thousand down to just over fifty thousand. Our camp alone lost half its people.”

“The balance that’s been broken will restore itself sooner or later — the ancient law won’t allow such an imbalance to persist indefinitely.” Yue Yang offered a few words of reassurance.

“Waiting for enough new challengers to join and rebalance things — that’s not impossible, just too slow. We can’t wait that long. The Angel Alliance is getting worse by the day. In about two months there’ll probably be another catastrophe…” Mark felt that unless every last person in the Dark Alliance simultaneously lost their minds, they would absolutely hit back with full force in two months.

“Ha — two months is plenty of time to get a lot done.” Yue Yang smiled faintly at that, said nothing more, and left it there.

With that much time available, he could go make the Heavens-Splitting Demon Lord’s life difficult first.

That was the primary target, after all.

Using the pretext of getting familiar with the terrain, Yue Yang took his leave of the genuine and forthright Mark, said farewell to the down-and-out but warm-hearted group of challengers in the camp, and set off toward his destination — the hidden gate that even Vivienne and the Prison Emperor had never entered.

The Demon God Hall.

(End of Chapter)