Chapter 193: The Mysterious City in the Depths of the Secret Realm

"Awakened, it is time for the hunt!"

"Let us hunt down those who have fallen into the darkness!"

"I know not where the wind on the ancient path rises, but it leads back to home."

"All things in this world are tied to the tip of a single arrow."

After shaking off Duan Ling, Ye Lin ventured deep into the Crying Soul Secret Realm. The monsters here were generally level forty or fifty, far beyond what a freshman could handle, so Ye Lin had no fear of encountering others and acted without restraint.

Holding the Eight Desolations Holy Silver Bow, he would fire an arrow the moment he saw a monster, then unleash Endless Devour to digest it.

It must be said that the monster density in a secret realm controlled by the Great Xia Academy is incredibly exaggerated, especially deeper in, where one encounters a common monster every three steps and a high-level monster every five.

This is far more concentrated than monsters in the wild, completely saving him the trouble of searching for them.

At this rate, by the time the Crying Soul Secret Realm closes, he will be able to raise his level by at least another three.

The further one goes, the harder it is to level up; if he hadn't entered the Crying Soul Secret Realm, it would have taken Ye Lin at least a month or two to gain these three levels.

"We common folk~ are truly, truly happy today~"

Ye Lin hummed a tune and fired another arrow, instantly finishing off yet another monster.

Where monsters were few, he relied on arrows; where they were many, he cast forbidden spells.

As far as his eyes could see, any monster he spotted could not escape death.

There was no day or night in the underground karst cave, and Ye Lin did not know how long he had been killing monsters.

His level had already risen by two, reaching level 52.

Feeling some mental fatigue, Ye Lin discarded his brain, then activated Undying Body to grow a new one, and continued his new round of slaughtering monsters.

He had now reached the deepest part of the Crying Soul Secret Realm; Ye Lin even encountered monsters with levels as high as seventy-plus.

Even for the current Ye Lin, it required his full strength to kill them.

After passing through a tide of monsters, Ye Lin discovered that a massive city had appeared before him!

And from the architecture within the city, it was not hard to tell that this was a human city!

Ye Lin was shocked; could it be that humans were still surviving in the depths of the Crying Soul Secret Realm?

How could this be possible? This place was crawling with terrifying monsters; unless everyone in this city was a level 90 big shot, living in a place like this was simply courting death.

Ye Lin took a deep breath. He did not alert the enemy, but instead activated the Great Void Art to approach the city silently.

And when Ye Lin saw the scene inside the city clearly, his pupils shrank violently, unable to hide his shock.

Because in this city, there were truly many humans—at least a million of them—and these humans did not look much different from those in the outside world.

It was just that because they lived in an underground cave and were long deprived of sunlight, their skin all presented a strange, snow-white color, and one could even clearly see the blue veins beneath their skin.

"Not a single job-changer?"

Ye Lin was astonished. He wandered through the city for a long time, but everyone he met was an ordinary person with not a shred of power fluctuation on them.

And what surprised Ye Lin even more was that this city not only lacked walls, but also had no defensive forces whatsoever.

In Ye Lin's view, this city was filled with strangeness at every turn. How could a human city with no job-changers, no walls, and no defensive forces survive in a place like the depths of the Crying Soul Secret Realm, where monsters were everywhere?

It was as unbelievable as a beautiful woman in a black silk camisole and short shorts going camping alone in the land of the "Third Brother" for a month and returning still a virgin.

To figure out what was going on with this city, it seemed he would have to start with the indigenous people here.

To avoid suspicion due to his different skin tone, Ye Lin first found a clothing shop, swiped a wide robe to drape over himself, and covered his face and body completely before appearing on the main street.

The people on the street walked in a hurry with numb expressions; no one spoke, and no one conversed. People performed their duties in the city like walking corpses, and the majority were female, with very few males.

As for Ye Lin, who had suddenly appeared, no one gave him a second glance, as if he were air.

"Hello, fellow countryman, I have severe constipation and have lost my memory. May I ask where this is?"

Ye Lin pulled aside a passerby and asked politely.

A glimmer of light that Ye Lin could not understand lit up in the passerby's hollow eyes.

"What did you say? You have an illness in your body, is that it?"

"Yes, that's right, I lost my memory, so I don't remember where this is." Ye Lin nodded.

At this moment, the passerby's eyes lit up like two lightbulbs.

"Come quickly! There's someone here with a bodily illness! Come help catch him! We haven't met this year's quota yet!"

Upon hearing that Ye Lin had an illness, the surrounding passersby stopped in their tracks.

They surrounded Ye Lin with hostile glares; those fierce eyes did not look like those of humans at all, but more like a pack of wolves that had caught the scent of blood.

Ye Lin's scalp tingled; he felt that the expressions of this group were as if they wanted to tear him apart and eat him alive.

Seeing everyone pouncing toward him, Ye Lin did not want to alert the rest of the city, so he relied on his superior agility to shake them off directly; after all, these people were just ordinary folks.

"What's the situation? And what is a 'quota'?"

After shaking those people off, Ye Lin's head was full of question marks. This city truly exuded an indescribable strangeness everywhere.

It seemed that if he wanted to understand what had happened here, asking directly wouldn't work; he had to grab someone and ask them alone.

In his heart, Ye Lin already had a guess, but he still needed to verify it.

Ye Lin randomly picked a target on the street and dragged them into a corner.

The one he caught was a teenage boy, but the boy was not afraid at all; instead, he looked at Ye Lin with a dull expression.

"Why did you grab me?"

"Speak, what is going on with this city! Why isn't there a single job-changer? And why haven't you all been slaughtered by monsters?" Ye Lin asked coldly.

"How could such a question come out of your mouth?"

The boy was stunned for a moment, then the expression on his face began to change, and he grabbed Ye Lin's hand with some excitement.

"You! You're from the outside world, aren't you! You're a person from the outside!"

Ye Lin hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

Seeing this, the boy became even more excited. His chest heaved violently like a broken bellows, and Ye Lin was afraid he would drop dead from not catching his breath.

"Can you let me see your face?"

Ye Lin did not refuse and removed all his disguises. When he saw Ye Lin's healthy skin tone, the boy's eyes instantly turned red, and his bloodless lips trembled slightly.

The boy reached out his hand, wanting to touch Ye Lin's face, but he quickly pulled it back, a look of envy appearing in the depths of his eyes.

"Is this what Great Grandfather spoke of, the skin tone that can touch the sun? It's so beautiful..."