Yan Qing initially planned to find a secluded corner to teleport back to the Thief’s House after leaving the Secret Realm, since he had been away for so long and was starting to feel homesick.

But as soon as he stepped out of the Secret Realm, the overwhelming scent of blood made him squint his eyes.

Severed limbs.

There were fragments of bodies everywhere.

As mentioned earlier, a fortress had been constructed around the entrance to the Secret Realm, manned by dozens of crossbow soldiers. Ordinary messengers couldn’t withstand their volleys. Now their bodies hung scattered on the fortress, with dark red blood streaming down the walls, resembling some kind of primitive sacrificial ground.

Walking out of the fortress, there were bodies scattered along the way, but not many, since people aren’t fools; if they can’t win, they’ll definitely run.

When Gai Louxian appeared, the surviving Baibao Guards didn’t rush out excitedly; they had realized that the purpose of the Evil Ghost Elite was to assassinate the high ranks of Ping City Military Town. This was a struggle between the Emperor and the noble families, and these low-level soldiers were inadvertently drawn into the political vortex. They stood by the roadside, hid in corners, watching Gai Louxian and Bu Liuguzhen with eyes full of numb fear.

Reaching the military training ground, Yan Qing held his breath.

Not only because the scene before him was shocking, but also because the smell was unpleasant.

He saw bodies and heads piled together like a mountain view or a bonfire, burning fiercely. The thick smoke from the burning flesh, leather, and various miscellaneous items was suffocating.

"Kill over a hundred, cremate to prevent plague; kill over a thousand, bury to avoid pestilence." Gai Louxian spoke without any emotion: "No wonder they are the elite of Shanwen Camp, even in such a short time, they upheld the Baibao military law."

Watching the skull roll out of the fire, Yan Qing was struck by a realization... He seemed to have killed people.

Although unbelievable, it was indeed the first time he personally killed someone.

In the first An Guo Temple case, he only injured people without killing; that was handled by his subordinate, who burned everything in blazing flames. The second case was even more focused on rescuing Shang Xinlei, the snot spirit; during the third case, although he acted, he only killed constables from Divine Marquis Mansion who were demons.

It wasn’t until just now that Yan Qing truly killed someone, and he killed seven at once, with the most violent execution by waist-chopping, yet he felt no special emotion, as if it was... almost like killing demons, nothing surprising.

He began to understand why the Three Central Plains Kingdoms all had an outwardly violent and inwardly cruel organizational structure; why the upper echelons were so oppressive and brutal towards civilians. It’s because messengers had long regarded killing as the most common method.

Consider that every messenger would slaughter dozens or hundreds of demons in a Secret Realm, most of which were humanoid demons. Demons were ferocious, terrifying, and undaunted by death; messengers wouldn’t hesitate when killing demons, even if demons looked like living humans.

Do demons look very different from living humans in the eyes of messengers?

Living humans are even easier to kill than demons.

Therefore, for messengers, every strategy of the Secret Realm was a desensitization; no matter their nature, they gradually became numb through repeated killings until they completely adapted to slaughter. Even when they left the Secret Realm, this code couldn’t instantly switch back. As long as enough people become accustomed to solving everything with ’killing,’ bloodshed naturally becomes the undertone of society.

What’s most troublesome is that the stronger a person becomes, the more they adapt to the slaughter rules of the Secret Realm, especially evident in Foundation Establishment Messengers. Winter Hunting Zhenren and True Man of Locking Dragon both wield life and death over mortals, acting without considering the country or its people, just like Yan Qing launching a Secret Realm attack without worrying about demons lacking sleep.

Yan Qing remembered some experts from his previous life saying playing games excessively could lead to real-life violence and murder. In his past life, this was nonsense because games and reality were separated by thick screens, the bloodshed onscreen had no odor, splitting someone in half only required a mouse click; no matter how many times players slaughtered in games, they would still fear seeing real corpses.

But what difference was there between completing a Three Mountain Secret Realm and wiping out the Zheng Family just now? In this aspect, games and reality completely blurred.

Games provided infinite resources and embedded ’slaughter for rewards’ into messenger thinking. Now, Yan Qing couldn’t avoid being affected; he felt nothing from killing people, and wasn’t afraid of seeing bones, like someone playing games too much, unable to distinguish reality from gaming—a true ’game in the mind.’

Suddenly, Yan Qing remembered a lamb soup shop outside the Military Town that had great flavor, and since he was here, why not eat before going back? He wanted to taste something fresh and hot.

However, as he stepped out of the Military Town’s gate, he froze in place.

Like a storm passing through, most buildings outside the Military Town were destroyed, including the soup shop, where the shop owner and his family of four were buried in the rubble, with scalding hot soup spilled across the ground.

Their victims extended all the way from the town gate to the entrance of the Military Town camp. They did nothing wrong, simply because their home was on the shortest path, they were crushed by an unreasonable storm, like ordinary people in a calamity who could only resign themselves to fate.

Looking at the ruins and rubble, Yan Qing imagined the ferocity of the Evil Ghost Elite charging, smashing through mountains, smashing through seas, wherever their iron hooves pointed was the direction where death spread!

"Sister Jiang, Sister Jiang!" A dirty little child ran over, tugging at Jiang Shi’s sleeve to pull her outside: "The house, the house collapsed, my mother and sister are still inside, Sister Jiang, please save my mother!"

The child pulled once but didn’t manage to move her, and instead fell to the ground from using too much force. He was stunned for a moment, then suddenly remembered something, knelt on the ground and kowtowed to Jiang Shi. However, he clearly didn’t know what kowtowing was, only imitating the actions of adults, looking more like he was shaking his head, which seemed rather comical.

Yan Qing looked in the direction he pointed, and saw a pale arm sticking out from the rubble, dark red blood seeping out from the cracks. There hasn’t been any movement for so long, they might have fainted or could be dead. Some were desperately digging through the rubble, some were crying over bodies, and those not affected stayed hidden in their homes, afraid to come out. Passersby hurried past, no one dared to even pass by the military town gate. When Yan Qing looked over, the distant onlookers quickly hid away, fearing they might get involved.

Emotions like anger, hatred, and sympathy can only become captives to fear in the face of massive violence.

"Go ahead." Yan Qing said calmly to Jiang Shi, then turned and left to return to the military town. He didn’t want to stay in this place any longer, didn’t want to see or hear anymore. Since he couldn’t get any soup and bread, he might as well find a corner to instantly move back to the Thief’s House.

But when Yan Qing regained his senses, he had unknowingly found Gai Louxian.

At this moment, Gai Louxian was organizing the aftermath, his face full of worry, trying to keep his spirit up. Bu Liuguzhen was nowhere to be seen. Seeing Yan Qing come over and stand beside him waiting, he sensibly waved his men away, "Is there anything you need the old man to help with?"

"Who exactly were those enemies just now?"

"The Baibao Guards directly under His Majesty the Emperor’s Shanwen Camp, also known as the Evil Ghost Elite."

"Where is the Shanwen Camp stationed?"

Gai Louxian was slightly taken aback, hesitated for a moment and said: "The Shanwen Camp has two stations, one is the Fire Tree Military Town in Nocturnal Heaven County Town, and the other is the Tombstone Military Town 150 li to the west, with the Tombstone Military Town being the core station because it contains the Second-Turn Secret Realm, Tombstone Forest."

Tombstone Forest?

Yan Qing’s heart stirred, "Introduce Tombstone Forest."

"I don’t know much about Tombstone Forest, only the elite Baibao of Shanwen Camp are qualified to enter. It is said the demons in Tombstone Forest are corpse ghosts, strong and impervious to blades. Common tokens are ineffective against them, only fire attacks have a peculiar effect." Gai Louxian paused: "I heard that the Tombstone Forest Secret Realm is raided three times a day. The fact that the Second-Turn Secret Realm can be cleared so frequently indicates that the military town has mastered near-perfect offensive and defensive techniques. Thus, the Tombstone Military Town is also the most affluent and powerful military town in the Qi Kingdom, with a garrison of over thirty thousand soldiers."

However, Yan Qing didn’t hear the latter part of Gai Louxian’s words, his mind was only on one thing:

The demon type is ’ghost,’ the Corpse Bone Forest Secret Realm can be purified with Buddhist Sect tokens, could the same be true for the Tombstone Forest Secret Realm?

...

...

「The milestone ’Mighty Guardian of Three Mountains’ has been achieved.」

「Milestone reward of Intermediate Whetstone has been added to personal inventory slot.」

After returning to the Thief’s House, Yan Qing raided the ’Three Mountain’ Secret Realm four more times, finally reaching 200 Secret Realm raids.

「Mighty Guardian of Three Mountains: Receive Intermediate Whetstone after defeating Zheng Shan of ’Three Mountain’ 200 times. Upon reaching this milestone, your damage to Zheng Shan in ’Three Mountain’ is reduced by 50%, single instance maximum damage capped at 70, Zheng Shan’s attacks will additionally cause fire damage to players, and Zheng Shan’s loot drop rate +10%.」

「Next Level Milestone · Mighty Guardian of Three Mountains: Defeat Zheng Shan of ’Three Mountain’ 1000 times (200/1000).」

Seeing the ’Mighty Guardian of Three Mountains’ milestone, Yan Qing was instantly numb. If it were under 500 times, he might have considered it, but at 1000 times, he felt like the officials were just playing him for a fool, especially with the damage to Zheng Shan reduced by 50% and capping at 70, this was an outright ploy to prolong players’ game time.

Although "Messenger" is a time-charging MMORPG, it’s moderated in some content because if you expect players to grind, you surely need to provide corresponding rewards. The higher the reward value, the easier it is for balance to collapse, the only exception being the reality mode. No matter how much a player grinds or how overpowered the character becomes, as long as they die, it’s resolved.

The ’Mighty Guardian of Three Mountains’ milestone is different, it openly exploits you, the final reward absolutely doesn’t match the time and effort spent on 1000 dungeon runs, but what if someone just enjoys repetitive tasks? It’s hard to say what players will enjoy.

Either way, it’s all about making money, the officials apparently don’t mind earning from such fools... people with special tastes.

Since deciding not to raid this Secret Realm, Yan Qing started thinking about the next development plan. Twenty days seem ample, but now that he’s already at Third Transition Cultivation, there’s not much room for improvement.

To the north towards the Murong Family, or west into the Tombstone Forest?