"Whoosh!"
While the group was casually chatting, a bone-chilling gust of wind suddenly swept past. The blazing fire was instantly extinguished.
The five present immediately tensed their muscles; the previously sluggish atmosphere was swiftly crushed, replaced by extreme vigilance. Everyone’s natal Holy Artifact simultaneously materialized, ready for battle.
However, glancing around, absolutely no shadow of any magic beast appeared.
Was it just paranoia making them overreact? The thoughts of all five perfectly synchronized in this moment.
Jeremy frowned. He bent down to use his flint to rekindle the dry branches, but just as it sparked, the tiny flame instantly died out, as if some invisible hand had deliberately snuffed it.
This coldness... was clearly not a normal sea breeze.
The originally calm sea in the distance began to echo with the roaring sound of crashing waves. The gloomy sky suddenly poured down a drizzling rain, enveloping the entire beach in an eerie fog.
"..."
Suddenly, Jeremy felt a sticky, chilling sensation wrap tightly around his calf.
A sudden downpour crashed down, tearing through the fog. The exact moment a blinding flash of lightning tore across the sky, Jeremy instinctively looked down.
In a split second, the blood in his entire body seemed to freeze.
Beneath the sand, countless eyeballs the size of human fists were swarming up. The turbid, thick blood-colored pupils were covered in patchy layers of blue-black mold.
Rotting flesh and severed, slimy nerves still clung to them, clearly visible. They were scattered everywhere, the bloodshot pupils constantly spinning wildly, locking their gaze on the five of them.
From out of nowhere, white skeletal hands also began to pierce through the sand. The bright red rotting flesh clinging to the bones writhed continuously as if alive. A massive amount of slimy, incredibly foul-smelling fluid oozed out along the crevices of the bones, making one want to vomit just from looking.
And one of those damn skeletal hands was clutching tightly onto Jeremy’s ankle, desperately trying to drag him down into the endless, pitch-black sand...
’Fear’.
Jeremy felt that compared to the word ’horror’, this concept more accurately described the emotion roaring in his chest right now.
It didn’t just stop at eyeballs and white bones; mixed within that slimy mess were countless fragments of foreign objects looking exactly like human skin peeled alive... The facial features on those patches of skin were twisted and crying, exactly like descriptions of the ugliest, most desperate creatures at the bottom of hell in ancient texts.
Thunder rumbled continuously. Jeremy gritted his teeth, raising his blade to slash clean through the filthy white bone clutching his leg. The slash was so decisive that the bone shattered into powder.
He was just about to step back to find a clean patch of ground, but it was hopeless. The entire vast beach had long been besieged by these hideous mongrels.
Based on the magic beast encyclopedia he had just digested, these things shared a single designation: Corpse-Eating Flower.
This was a mutated symbiotic plant-type magic beast with an incredibly disgusting reproductive capability. As long as they sucked dry the flesh and blood of a human, they could immediately use their swarm bloodline ability to replicate the aura of life, simultaneously perfectly disguising all of their own demonic aura.
That was the reason why this pack of monsters could approach silently without a single one of them noticing in the slightest.
Not a few inexperienced mages had died in grievance under the cunning ambush of this malicious plant.
"How gross." Lucius’s beautiful face wrinkled in deep disgust. He used the heel of his shoe to crush an eyeball slithering toward him, a chilling popping sound ringing out: "These mongrels seem to be averse to fire."
Hearing that, Jeremy struck a match, wrapped it in a thin layer of magic element to isolate it from the rainwater, and tossed it straight into the slimy tentacles and roots on the ground. But disappointingly, ordinary physical fire dealt absolutely no damage to them.
He tried to force the magic power in his body to condense a magical fireball, but the moment it was half-formed, it immediately shattered due to the space’s suppressive barrier.
The extreme feeling of grievance and helplessness when magic power was stripped away was now truly etched into Jeremy’s cognition. If the purpose of this bizarre lesson was to use surrounding terror and suffocating emotional suppression to stimulate the limits of spiritual power... then Jeremy had to bitterly admit, Griffin’s damn plan was indeed starting to take effect.
Flashes of lightning constantly tore through the night sky. The freakish plants were like a murky tidal wave, forcing the five youths to retreat step by step toward the edge of the forest.
Jeremy sharply cast his eyes around to observe. The forest was only a few steps away; the soil inside was noticeably darker and more damp, yet there was absolutely no sign of a single Corpse-Eating Flower branch spreading inward.
The appearance of this monster pack on the beach... was exactly like a herding tool, gradually forcing them to step into that pitch-black cavernous mouth called the primeval forest.
Suddenly, gurgling rumbling sounds emanated from beneath the ground. The pale white bones simultaneously stacked upon one another to form a grotesque shape, countless bloodshot eyeballs dancing wildly on the rotting flesh. As if having just broken through some restraining seal, the monsters let out choked sounds and charged massively toward them.
The sky poured torrential rain, pitch black as ink. Evelyn astutely relied on the fluctuation of breathing auras to direct her gaze toward the captain standing next to her.
Her flat voice rose: "Want to make a bet? Entering the forest might salvage a slightly better chance of survival than that slimy pile of meat outside. Of course... it’s also possible that everything inside is a hundred times worse."
The stench of rotting corpses mingled with the musty air increasingly assaulted their noses. Jeremy completely cast aside all superfluous calculations, decisively issuing the order: "Go!"
He took long strides, swinging his blade to clear a path, charging straight into the darkness of the forest. The remaining four did not hesitate for half a second, immediately following closely on his heels.
The towering ancient tree trunks intertwined their branches and leaves into an impenetrable net. The night sky outside was already gloomy; under the cover of the massive canopy, even the blinding lightning slashes could not penetrate half a thin ray of light.
Jeremy had to rely entirely on the meager elemental energy he could mobilize to orient himself in the surrounding space. Thanks to this, he barely maintained normal movement ability amidst this choked-off visibility, acting no differently than a blind man.
However, whether it was him or the four teammates behind him, under the pressure of the terrain and the darkness, their fleeing speed significantly decreased compared to the escape from the magic beast pack during the day.
Running for their lives for over half an hour, it wasn’t until the foul stench emanating from the Corpse-Eating Flowers’ slime was gradually blown away by the forest wind that Evelyn spoke up to break the silence: "We can stop. The survival radius of the Corpse-Eating Flower is fixed; they cannot chase us all the way here."
"Alright," Jeremy replied curtly, slowly regulating his breathing and stopping his steps.
Right at this moment, the magic ID device attached to their wrists, which had been silent since early evening, suddenly vibrated, projecting a sparkling light screen amidst the darkness.
The five immediately spun around, simultaneously gluing their eyes to the interface.
The message from the instructor Griffin displayed every word clearly:
[Regret to inform you, you have failed to complete the survival mission within the stipulated time limit. Although this is an incredibly garbage result, considering you are merely rookies who have just escaped your safety shells, this time I will mercifully not apply physical punishment. However... before the training officially concludes, all of you must continue to root yourselves inside this forest until the final challenge category is completed.]
[As a bonus, a sincere reminder: The forest you have stepped into is called the Phantom Gluttony Forest. Here, phantoms and vengeful spirits wander in every nook and cranny, and of course, occasionally a few starving demons will appear. They might possess your bodies, they might weave countless cruel illusions to swallow the rationality of intruders. Or more realistically... they will tear your bodies apart as a snack.]
[Starting from this second, I will release all magic power seals on your bodies. I hope your next performance will be slightly less pathetic. Do not disappoint me again.]
The light screen abruptly went out.
After reading that absurd notification, Leon burst into laughter, his sarcastic tone sharp and cold: "Is he delusional? Does he think we are some backpacker players in an adventure game?"
"Perhaps so." Lucius casually spread his hands, the pink tint at the outer corners of his eyes lifting slightly: "If we’re unluckier, our team might have to camp here and fertilize the trees for the whole of next week."
Jeremy rubbed the space between his eyebrows, truly feeling as if he had just logged out of reality only to mistakenly fall into some garbage dungeon. But who could he complain to now? In this dog-eat-dog world, the academy’s secret realm was an absolute cage; their current strength was completely insufficient to tear open the barrier and escape; they could only bite the bullet and play by the rules.
The only good news was that the magic power sealing shackles had actually been removed. Jeremy raised his hand and lightly flipped his palm, a blazing magical flame immediately flaring up.
The gloomy forest surrounding them was instantly lit up over a large area. Darkness is always a catalyst that magnifies a human’s primal fear, so once visibility was restored, the encroaching sense of oppression also significantly decreased. At least from the outward appearance, this seemed to be just a normal primeval forest that excessively lacked light.
Right at this moment, Phoenix, the male student bearing a timid, gloomy expression who had maintained a silent state this entire time, suddenly spoke in a steady voice: "Captain, right behind you is a phantom."
Originally, on Earth in his previous life, Jeremy was an atheistic materialist. But after transmigrating into this ridiculous magical world, he fully understood that concepts like demons, vengeful spirits, and phantoms were all living, breathing entities.
Hearing the warning, his survival instinct surged. Instead of foolishly turning his head to check, Jeremy’s first action was to channel force into the tips of his toes, launching himself straight forward into a decisive roll to widen the safe distance, getting far away from his previous position.
Having stabilized his posture, he then gripped his blade tightly and spun around, his gaze as sharp as a dagger darting toward where he had just stood.
An empty space. There was nothing, except for some spindly tree trunks and sparse, withered weeds.
Jeremy narrowed his eyes. Based on his observations over the past day and a half, he did not believe that with Phoenix’s extremely timid, withdrawn personality, he would have the spare energy to make a joke out of lives.
Phantoms were amorphous creatures; compared to the physical destructive power of vengeful spirits or demons, their damage was much lower. Usually, they only used illusions to control the intruder’s nerves, causing the victim to gradually exhaust themselves and get lost within their own fear.
He shifted his gaze to Phoenix’s pale face, which was half-hidden by black hair, and calmly deduced: "So you mean... you have the ability to see through invisible entities like phantoms?"
Phoenix shrank his shoulders slightly, giving a faint nod, his voice carrying its characteristic hoarse tone: "The exclusive blessed ability of my natal Mark... is the ’Eye of Nightmare’."
Eye of Nightmare - The unique core ability of Spirit Covenant number 301. Its absolute capability was to see through all types of disguises and ethereal illusions, while precisely locating all semi-soul entities existing in invisible forms, such as remnant souls, phantoms, and demons.
Jeremy fell into silence for a few seconds. Currently, the records regarding the Covenant Mark system publicly stored on the continent only compiled data for mid-tier ranks.
Specific information about the innate abilities of the Holy Covenant group from ranks 1 to 20, and the bottom-tier Spirit Covenants from 301 to 305, was completely a murky gray area, leaving no written records whatsoever.
The reason why the high-tier and bottom-tier Mark systems were not made public...
Using this continent’s words to explain, the former group, because their power was excessively dominant, had their data sealed as top secret by the ruling authorities, while the latter group... was so garbage that no one even bothered to waste paper and ink recording them.