The Place Where Everything Begins

First of all, the things that greeted Jeremy's eyes were wooden barricades and makeshift obstructions, just like the ones back in the first stage.

Then, Jeremy saw many people wearing various kinds of armor and holding dangerous-looking weapons within their hands.

More than two hundred meters behind those people were many tents in myriad colors pitched here and there scatteringly as the place should be the camping zone. Meanwhile, Jeremy even saw some wooden houses in the remote areas away from the camping zone.

After Jeremy looked farther into the back of the camp, which should be around the camp's centermost area, he saw an enormous blue Crystal floating there silently, just like in the first stage.

However, the sheer sizes between the two Crystals couldn't be compared with one another in the least. If the green Crystal within the first stage was in a phonebooth size, the giant blue Crystal floating at the camp's middle was like a medium-sized house.

Furthermore, it was floating above the ground... such a big Crystal was floating...

The size and appearance of the Crystal were enough to captivate anyone looking at it...

Unfortunately, Jeremy had seen a far bigger one than this Crystal before, so he didn't feel that surprised, but he had to pretend...

"Holy!! Morgan..." said Jeremy with a wide-open mouth as he walked alongside Morgan to the camp's entrance.

"I know, right? That's the Crystal I had talked about earlier."

Morgan answered with a fascinating look on his face as it appeared that he also felt captivated by the Crystal, even though he had seen it countless times already.

The blue Crystal should be more than three hundred meters or so away from them, yet they could see it rotating spellbindingly and clearly over there in a silent manner.

It was enormous, beautiful, and splendid at the same time...

At this time, the group gradually arrived not far from the gate as they stopped before the two armored muscular guards.

*Sigh...*

The guard on the left suddenly sighed and shook his head helplessly after the group stopped in front of him before opening his mouth to talk slowly,

"More than half of you..."

After everyone had heard the guard's words, they could only smile sadly and tiredly as a response. They didn't even have the energy to explain anything to the two guards anymore.

The only thing they wanted right now was 'resting'...

When the guard saw such a reaction, he could only swallow his following words back into his stomach before continuing with a helpless tone,

"Welcome back to the camp..."

"Thank you, Brian. How is today's result?"

Having heard Morgan's question, the guard, Brian, replied with a bitter voice,

"We haven't spotted the enemy's camp yet..."

"Well, I could guess that from your expressions alone. Then, how about the others?"

Brian almost sighed once again after being asked this question as he could only reply with an even more bitter expression,

"From the twelve teams we've sent out today, two teams haven't come back yet, albeit it had already exceeded the appointment time for dozens of minutes; your team is the tenth team to arrive here. As for casualties..."

"Two teams haven't lost anyone, whereas the other eight, including your team, have lost at least one person in the scouting mission."

Pausing for a bit to catch his breath, Brian adjusted his expressions a bit before continuing with a somewhat skeptical face,

"Also... team 7 had only one survivor coming back some hours ago. After arriving back here, the guy had been saying stutteringly nonstop about the wolf monster or something. Due to that, I didn't even understand what he was talking about back then, so I sent him to the medic team."

Brian shook his head slightly after finishing his narration.

Unbeknownst to him, the expressions of those ten people present had changed into an ugly one as if they had just eaten some shit.

At the end of the day, it couldn't be helped as they had almost become wolves' meal just some hours ago. Furthermore, that wolfpack also had the so-called wolf monster, just like Brian had said...

Within those people's minds, it should be called a dog-humanoid monster instead of a wolf monster...

"What's wrong with you guys? Did you eat shit before coming here?" asked the guard on the right as he spotted the people in front of him didn't look quite good after hearing Brian's words.

Especially Kurt, his face twitched a bit and looked unsightly after hearing about the wolf monster...

*Sigh...*

Morgan sighed tiredly as he clarified the confused guards,

"We've also encountered the so-called wolf monster like team 7..."

...

The sky looked gloomy as it was now at dusk, with some clouds floating freely yet almost unnoticeably in the sky from the lack of light.

At this time, every area within the camp, including the high fences and towers, was lit up with moderately bright lights illuminating from countless fire torches.

In front of a small wooden house not far from the camping area, a group of ten people was seen standing, grouping together.

The house had two men wearing leather armors standing guard with a sword, a bow, and a quiver as their weapons.

"You guys wait for me here; I will go in to report and be back in a jiffy," said Morgan towards the other nine people before walking in the wooden house's direction.

Morgan left his weapons with the two guards before walking into the house to give his report.

Meanwhile, the nine people on the outside seemed to be too tired as they decided to sit down on the dirt ground right there, not caring about whether their buttocks would be dirtied or not.

Some people talked with one another, some only sat silently, and some closed their eyes to take a light sleep.

As for Jeremy, he was among the silent people as he only sat there quietly while thinking to himself about random stuff.

Soon, ten minutes had passed...

*Tok* *Tak*

*Tok* *Tak*

The footsteps rang out from within the wooden house as Morgan's figure could be seen by the people sitting outside.

Morgan retrieved his gears back from the guards before walking towards the group.

"How is it?"

A female within the group asked Morgan after the latter arrived before them.

Simultaneously, everyone else also stood up from the ground, preparing to leave to do their own things.

Instead of answering the woman, Morgan shrugged his shoulders slightly before turning his head towards Jeremy and said,

"Well, Tommy, our leader wants to have a chat with you."