webnovelvip Chapter 234 Hellish Training
Chapter 234 Hellish Training
Dragon Guard Fourth Training Base, codenamed Millstone.
It's actually a level 50 dungeon whose entrance and exit have been sealed off by the military using a magic array.
Inside the secret realm lay a desolate swamp. Dead, giant trees were stuck in the muddy water, their roots entwined with glowing mycelium. The air reeked of a mixture of rust and rotting mud.
Seventy people stood on the entrance platform.
Their equipment was complete, all A-grade standard sets uniformly issued by the military after the war on the southern front. Each of them wore an expression of eager anticipation.
After all, it's a level 50 dungeon.
The lowest-ranking person present was a near-second-tier cultivator. They could have easily crushed this level of secret realm three months ago.
Lu Yan stood at the edge of the platform, his back to everyone.
The expressions of the seventy people froze for a moment.
"Stop looking at your attributes, don't put unnecessary pressure on yourself."
The captain of the fifth squad raised his hand.
"Instructor Lu, how are we supposed to judge if they're all locked up...?"
"Rely on yourself."
Lu Yan turned around.
"The essence of second-order awakening is not a breakthrough in data. It is a qualitative change in how your body and mind perceive energy."
"You guys are relying entirely on the stats right now. If your health gets low, retreat; if you run out of mana, wait for the cooldown."
"Higher-dimensional beings don't have control panels. They kill based on instinct."
"You can't beat them because you're an extra layer of middlemen compared to them."
He said this without pausing.
With a wave of his right hand, the black energy of the Void Disc swept across everyone's eyes.
The blue light on the system panel flashed briefly in everyone's field of vision, then went out.
Clean and tidy.
The third squad's vice-captain—the one who was so stubborn yesterday—subconsciously touched the healing potion at his waist.
Without a reference point, the response value marked on the medicine bottle became an unknown liquid.
Today's training content: individual combat.
Lu Yan walked down from the platform.
Military boots sank into the mud, splashing up gray water droplets.
"Three hundred reactivated high-level aberrations have been released into the secret realm. Their attack patterns mimic those of second-tier secret realm monsters."
"One-on-one. Kill one, trade one."
"They won't die. Su Yunqing and Lin Chuxue are locking their health from behind, but only at the very lowest level."
He stopped.
I glanced back at it.
"It means you'll be beaten to the point of near death. But you won't die."
"Provided that Su Yunqing has enough time."
Su Yunqing stood in the back row, her Yao Guang's Blessed Staff resting on the ground. She smiled at those guys in front who were determined to be heroes.
She smiled very gently.
But the few people in the front row who had witnessed the first squad's operations felt a chill run down their spines.
---
The first batch of ten people went down.
The mycelium deep within the swamp trembled. The muddy water churned. Ten frost aberrations, each over two meters long, burst forth from different directions.
There is no panel.
There is no health bar.
No damage numbers are displayed above your head.
One of the riflemen from the seventh squad panicked.
He didn't know if his shot would penetrate the opponent's ice armor. He didn't know how much health he would have left when the opponent's claw came at him.
Before, all this information was floating right in front of me. Now it's all gone.
His spear tip was off by two inches.
The Frost Aberration's claws slashed across his shoulder armor. The sound of metal tearing was deafening.
Fresh blood spurted out, mixed with bits of flesh.
The pain was real and felt throughout my entire body.
He wanted to look down at his wound—but there were no numbers to tell him how much blood he had lost.
Two thousand? Three thousand? Or five thousand?
do not know.
The second claw has already landed.
Su Yunqing's healing light fell on him. The wound was half healed. Only half healed.
The pikeman gritted his teeth and rolled. He used the force of the pike shaft to bounce off the ground.
The second claw grazed his nose, and shards of ice scraped his face.
"Don't look at the numbers, look at its shoulders."
Lu Yan's voice came from above.
"Before it extends its claws, its shoulder blades will turn outwards. A movement of the left shoulder is a horizontal sweep, and a movement of the right shoulder is a downward slash."
The spearmen didn't have time to process this information. The third claw arrived.
He instinctively sidestepped. The tip of the gun grazed the deformed creature's ribs.
The ice armor cracked.
It's cracked, so it's useful.
Who cares how much blood is lost? Keep poking at the cracks.
He started hitting.
Clumsy, disheveled, and covered in blood and gore.
But he started looking at the enemy with his eyes instead of at the panel.
---
The seventh squad was in the worst condition.
They were a ranged squad, consisting of three mages and two archers, with only two melee fighters.
The mage does not have a mana indicator.
After releasing three fireballs, the female mage of the seventh squad wondered if she could release a fourth.
She took a gamble.
The staff was raised, but the magic circle did not light up.
The sky is blue.
The mutant's claws were already upon them.
Lin Chuxue's Blood Explosion Array exploded beneath her feet, blasting the aberrant creature back three meters. But only three meters.
The female mage collapsed onto the muddy ground, her legs trembling.
"Stand up." Lu Yan's voice was cold.
"If you run out of mana, smash me with your staff. If you still have both legs, die standing up."
The female mage bit her lip and got up. She held her staff in her hand and used it as a stick.
---
The training session has entered its third hour.
The swamp was covered in blood. Most of it was human blood.
Su Yunqing's Blessing of Light never stopped. The silver healing light traversed the battlefield. But she strictly followed Lu Yan's orders—only locking down the lowest health level.
Someone had three ribs broken; the bones were healed, but the skin and flesh injuries were ignored.
One person had half of their face shaving off a layer of skin with crampons; the bleeding stopped, but the wound didn't heal.
Pain is real. Fear is real.
Only the numbers on the panel are fake—because they no longer exist.
The third squad's vice-captain withstood the attack of the fifth mutant.
His sword was broken, his left arm was dislocated, and his mouth was full of blood and foam. But his eyes lit up.
He discovered that he could "see".
It's not about seeing with your eyes. It's about perceiving with your whole body. The direction of the distorted body's icy breath flow, the subtle changes in muscle contraction, the vibrations transmitted from the ground when your feet touch the ground.
Everything rushed into my brain.
Without going through the panel.
It directly reaches the judgment center.
"Instructor!" he shouted. His voice was hoarse. "I... I think I touched it."
Lu Yan was already behind him.
Raise your hand.
Only a tiny wisp of the golden aura of the divine war halo was released, precisely injected into the soul of the third squad's vice-captain.
It's not a hundredfold increase.
It was just a tiny bit of thrust.
It was like dripping the last drop of water into a cup that was about to overflow.
The pores of the third squad's vice-captain's entire body opened. An energy not belonging to the first rank erupted from his dantian.
The bones are cracking. Muscle fibers are breaking and rebuilding.
The system blocked the panel, but the golden light of the breakthrough could not be blocked.
A golden beam of light shot up from above his head, piercing through the gray sky of the secret realm.
Second order.
Those who were still fighting for their lives in the swamp all stopped moving.
They stared at the golden light, their breathing becoming labored.
"Keep fighting." Lu Yan's voice drew their attention back. "What are you looking at? You're next."
---
Day 1 is over.
The three of them broke through to the second tier.
Zero out of seventy people were eliminated. Forty-three were seriously injured. Su Yunqing and Lin Chuxue were so exhausted that they leaned against each other, too weak to even speak.
Zhao Leiguang handed each of them a bottle of energy drink.
"Thanks for your hard work, girls."
Su Yunqing took the bottle, her hands trembling.
The camp was set up in a safe area near the entrance to the secret realm. A campfire was lit, and the aroma of broth masked the smell of blood.
Lu Yan sat at the edge of the camp.
They did not approach the campfire.
In his palm, the disk of nothingness was slowly spinning. Black specks of light danced on its surface.
In the chaos just now.
He detected a frequency that shouldn't exist.
It was extremely faint, mixed in with the mental fluctuations of the seventy people. If it weren't for Black Lotus's innate sensitivity to higher-dimensional laws, she wouldn't have been able to detect it at all.
The characteristic of that frequency... is the resonance of higher-dimensional energy.
It is not generated by the awakened one himself.
It is implanted externally.
Lu Yan remained silent.
His gaze swept over the tired yet excited face by the campfire. It swept over everyone.
Then I looked away.
With palms clasped together, the black lotus disappeared beneath the skin.
---
late at night.
The campfire at the camp had burned to ashes, leaving only a faint red glow.
The sounds of snoring rose and fell.
In the shadows of the northwest corner of the camp, a figure crouched behind a dead tree.
A soldier in the Eighth Squad. His performance during daytime training was average; he didn't make any breakthroughs, nor did he suffer any serious injuries.
His right hand was clenched over his chest.
A faint, pure white light shone through the gaps between his fingers.
His breathing was rapid and shallow. His eyes were bloodshot, and his pupils were dilated. His lips were moving, silently repeating something.
The fingers loosened a crack.
A crystal the size of a thumb lies in the palm of your hand.
Pure white. Unfathomable high-dimensional runes flow across its surface.
He stared intently at the crystal. His tongue licked his chapped lips.
"Faster..."
The sound was so low it was almost imperceptible.
"Give me a little more... and I can break through too..."
The white light from the crystal flickered.
It was as if she was responding to him.