In the end, perhaps only one person would be left standing in the resource point, and even then, it would be a pyrrhic victory.
He really did survive, but he was as good as dead.
His teammates were all dead, and his own condition was abysmally bad.
Even the supplies he looted from enemies couldn’t be used casually—he would have to leave the Secret Realm and find someone to break the seals on the Storage Pouches before he could use them.
So the question was, under these circumstances, how was he supposed to leave the Secret Realm?
This Secret Realm didn’t have a drop-out mechanic for you to escape.
If you wanted to leave, you had to pull the switch, and the switch points were scattered in various core zones.
If it was like this on their end, could the other core zones possibly be any better?
If he dared to go pull the switch by himself, that would be suicide.
In the end, the so-called victor could only become a little mouse, trying to barely survive until the bitter end.
The difficulty was also visibly high—almost impossible to achieve.
So after this desperate battle, there would be no victor here, only the dead and the losers.
Unfortunately, the Demonic Cultivators locked in deadly combat could no longer realize this.
They had even forgotten why they were fighting. Many times, they brushed past the Mirage Pearls on the ground, but no one thought to reach down and pick up one of those pearls.
Why were we fighting? I don’t know, but we just had to fight, had to kill all those bastards.
As the fight dragged on, fewer and fewer people were left standing in the battlefield.
Some cultivators were severely wounded, lying on the ground with barely a breath left; others were even worse off, not even able to breathe.
The heavily wounded cultivators who had fallen didn’t dare move recklessly, afraid that if they stirred, a still-living enemy would casually finish them off.
In the end, during this five-team free-for-all, the outermost Oriole Team emerged victorious.
The surviving Oriole Team cultivator, after one of his teammates had run off early, survived until the end by diverting trouble and using numbers to fight the few, and in the final one-on-one stage, he benefited from the conflict.
He slapped the Demonic Cultivator, who had just killed his other opponent, into severe injury, then launched a series of fierce attacks, successfully killing the last enemy and claiming victory alone.
As for his teammates, one had run away right after the fight started, and the other had died in battle.
“Hahaha, I won, I won!” Standing in a pile of corpses, he pressed his forehead and laughed uproariously, but as he laughed, his laughter slowly died down.
He won. Now what?
What was he supposed to do next?
Collect the loot. Right, he needed to collect the loot.
Somewhat lost, he dragged his weary steps toward the last Demonic Cultivator he had killed, pulling the Storage Pouch off the mangled corpse that was missing half its body.
This battle had lasted a long time—so long that the sky in the Secret Realm had already changed from bright to dark.
Now, with the light growing poor, the victor suddenly heard a heavy footstep.
Instinctively, he turned his head and saw his teammate—the one who had left first.
That coward who had fled the battle actually dared to come back, and even had that pearl that had been lying on the ground in his hand.
When the fighting was happening, you were nowhere to be seen. Now that it’s over, you come back to eat?
A surge of raging fire ignited in the surviving Demonic Cultivator’s chest. How could a wolf like him, good at fighting, have a greedy pig like this as a teammate?
He had fought bloodily against the enemy here, enduring countless hardships to finally achieve victory.
And then?
This bastard who ran away at the start of the battle actually came back and took the most valuable treasure!
No, not only did she take the Mirage Pearl, she seemed to be going for the Storage Pouches of the other dead!
How could he endure that?
Even a normal person, encountering this in a game, would immediately blow up at such a teammate, let alone a born-hot-tempered Demonic Cultivator.
This was the real world, friendly fire wasn’t turned off, and he had sharp weapons in his hands. So what reason was there to let this greedy bastard have her way!
The moment he made this decision, she was no longer his teammate but a hateful enemy snatching food from the tiger’s mouth!
The Demonic Cultivator’s eyes gradually became bloodshot. Black spiritual power attached to his forearm, forming the shape of a sharp claw.
He took a deep breath and charged at the figure ahead, facing away from him.
Sssch!
The claw easily plunged into the body without any resistance, which surprised the Demonic Cultivator.
Where was this traitor’s protective spirit tool?
And the feel was also strange. Why couldn’t he feel the blood flow inside this body?
Before he could think about the reason, he saw the traitor teammate’s head, which he had pierced through, rotate 180 degrees, turning from facing away to staring directly at him.
Hollow, lifeless eyes. Skin devoid of any blood. This person had long been dead!
Then why was she moving? What was driving this long-dead body to act?
Terrified, the Demonic Cultivator saw the corpse slowly open its mouth.
Vines, thick and terrifying in appearance, surged out of that mouth toward him.
He hurriedly tried to retreat, but his hand, stabbed into the corpse, wouldn’t budge.
Looking closely, he saw that his hand was already entangled by even thinner vines, completely immobile.
Seeing this, he didn’t hesitate for a moment. He immediately raised his free hand, condensed spiritual power into a blade on his arm, and was about to chop down at the trapped hand.
Now he had no choice but to cut off his own arm.
“Wouldn’t it be better to leave yourself a whole body?”
An icy sensation came from his raised hand. The Demonic Cultivator’s body stiffened.
He turned his head nervously toward the direction of the voice but saw nothing.
The chilling touch came from several vines that had somehow wrapped around his wrist, completely controlling his movements, making him unable to do anything.
He had used too much power in the great battle, and now he didn’t have enough strength left to resist this strange attack.
In the end, he still couldn’t become the Oriole.
The vines surging from the corpse’s mouth wrapped around his head.
Accompanied by a tooth-grinding crunching sound, the Demonic Cultivator fell weakly to the ground.
Vines burst from the ground, pierced his body, and drained him dry.
In no time, only a withered skeleton remained.
The vines swirling in the air coalesced into a human form on this battlefield that had no victor.
A pair of delicate hands took the Mirage Pearl from the standing Demonic Cultivator’s corpse, raised it toward the sky.
The mist that had filled the entire resource point began to converge with her movements, reabsorbed into the pearl.
After collecting it, Hua Jian counted the amount of Mirage Qi in the pearl.
This incitement operation had consumed quite a bit—about a quarter of the Mirage Qi in the Mirage Pearl.
But considering that this Mirage Qi had caused a bunch of Ling Kings here to kill each other down to the last person, allowing her to easily pick up the spoils, Hua Jian felt this consumption wasn’t too much of a loss.
Tucking the pearl into her bosom, Hua Jian smiled as she looked at the battlefield that seemed utterly devoid of life.
“Sigh, there are still some dirty things left here. Let me clean up a bit.”
As soon as she finished speaking, several of the corpses suddenly jumped up as if resurrected, fleeing headlong out of the resource point without looking back.
Hua Jian didn’t bother with these running figures. None of them would get away.
Why did these Demonic Cultivators play dead? And why could they play dead?
Because they really were nearly beaten to death.
Their protective spirit tools were used up, and their auras were pathetically weak.
Only in this state could they lie still on the ground without being suspected.
They had originally planned to wait for the final victor to come over and collect the loot, then suddenly strike and try to counterattack.
But who knew there would be another Oriole here in perfect condition, and she had even noticed they were playing dead.
So what could they do? Hope that this fully intact person would be bullied by a few broken-down remnants like them? Don’t dream. Run!
Maybe she wouldn’t bother chasing, or wouldn’t be able to catch them.
The Demonic Cultivators who were playing dead guessed half right.
Hua Jian indeed didn’t want to chase them, but not because she was lazy or couldn’t catch them—simply because there was no need.
Swish, swish, swish!
The cultivators who had just taken flight didn’t get far before they fell to the ground one after another, like birds with broken wings.
The Pea Shooters Hua Jian had placed nearby hadn’t taken off.
As for those old, weak, and wounded ones… they were pure live targets, plain and simple.
After shooting down these birds, Hua Jian didn’t bother with them.
Their physical condition couldn’t stop the Heart-Eating Vine’s attacks anyway.
Hopping a couple of steps through the battlefield that had turned into ruins, Hua Jian reached out and took the Storage Pouches of the dead from a few vines.
Without even looking at them, she hung them at her waist.
No need to look. The more than ten Storage Pouches here weren’t of much use to her.
Rather than wasting effort to break them open, it was better to take them out and let Huaxinhu deal with them.
As the Saintess, she could get a discounted price for having Huaxinhu open Storage Pouches—just one-tenth of the profits as a commission.
That was because Huaxinhu had a thick enough skin. If it were anyone else, who would dare to take a share from the Saintess?
“And that’s done!” After taking the spoils, Hua Jian turned her head to look at the true purpose of this trip.
The mechanism had already been activated. Honestly, Wanhuagu built things with good quality.
Standing there through the Ling King battle for so long, the mechanism hadn’t sustained any damage at all.
Hmm, thinking about it, that made sense. If the mechanism were really fragile, wouldn’t it be awkward if the Ling King cultivators broke it by fighting?
Although Hua Jian wanted to trap everyone and kill them in the Secret Realm, she wouldn’t resort to such crude methods.
At least she had to make it sound plausible when she explained things later.
See, saying that the Tianmomen blocked the main escape route, leading to none of the cultivators in the Secret Realm escaping, was much better than saying that a design flaw in Wanhuagu caused all the Demonic Cultivators to be lost.