In a high-level martial arts game, a wife is given to you at the start.

A few days after stepping into the wilderness, a strange tremor came from the ground beneath my feet.

It wasn't an earthquake.

It was a heavier, more rhythmic tremor, as if some enormous thing was moving in the distance, making the earth tremble with every step.

He paused for a moment, his gaze fixed on the depths of the wasteland.

On the distant horizon, a patch of grayish-yellow dust could be vaguely seen rising, reaching a height of tens of meters, like a moving sand wall slowly advancing in their direction.

"What's that?" Qingyin walked to his side, followed his gaze, and her expression changed slightly. "A sandstorm?"

"It's not a sandstorm." Lin Qiye's voice was calm, but a cold glint flashed in his eyes. "It's a herd of beasts."

"A horde of beasts?" The Barbarian Princess jumped up from the blanket, grabbed the short-handled battle axe lying beside her, and rushed to Lin Qiye's side. She squinted at the distant cloud of dust. "What kind of beast horde could cause such a commotion in the wasteland?"

"I don't know." Lin Qiye handed Lin Xi, whom he was holding, to Luo Sheng beside him. His voice was so calm that it revealed no emotion. "But whatever it is, they are coming in our direction."

Luo Sheng took Lin Xi from her, her face slightly pale, but she didn't panic. Instead, she quickly wrapped Lin Xi in her arms and turned to Shuang'er and Qingyin, shouting, "Pick up all the children and gather them in the middle. Prepare to evacuate!"

Shuang'er quickly picked up Lin Chen, Qingyin picked up Lin Yao, and Manji carried Lin Lan with one arm and a short-handled battle axe in the other, their eyes fixed on the approaching cloud of dust in the distance. The other nine maids also picked up their children and quickly gathered in the center of the group, forming a tight defensive circle.

Lin Qiye stood at the front of the group, his gaze calmly fixed on the rapidly approaching cloud of dust in the distance.

He could feel the tremors growing stronger and more intense—it wasn't just one beast, but at least dozens, or even hundreds, of them rushing toward him at an alarming speed.

Moreover, he could sense that the aura of those strange beasts carried an extremely familiar scent.

That was the aura emanating from the ruins of the Bone Tower deep within the Canggu Mountains.

It's fluorescent blue.

Contaminated.

His pupils contracted slightly.

Those strange beasts were not ordinary wild animals of the wilderness. They were strange beasts that had gathered around the Canggu Mountains from all directions, attracted by the energy emitted from the drop of blood from the candle. After the Bone Tower collapsed, they lost their energy source and began to spread in all directions in search of a new energy source.

And they had clearly found him.

"Lin Qiye—" the Barbarian Princess's voice came from behind him, tinged with tension, "They're charging at us!"

Before the words were even finished, the cloud of smoke had already closed to within hundreds of feet.

Lin Qiye finally saw what those strange beasts looked like.

It was a group of enormous, lizard-like creatures covered in grayish-white bony armor, with thick limbs and tails that dragged on the ground, kicking up clouds of dust as they ran. Their heads were covered with a thick layer of bony scalp armor, with a fist-sized cluster of fluorescent blue crystals embedded in the center, gleaming with a cold, eerie light in the sunlight. Their eyes were fluorescent blue, their pupils filled with a chilling madness and greed.

Their numbers are at least several hundred.

Hundreds of mutated giant lizards, corrupted by the energy of the Bone Tower, were charging madly towards their group of only a dozen women and babies with overwhelming force.

"Protect the child!" Lin Qiye's voice suddenly rang out, and his figure disappeared from the spot the moment the words fell.

The next instant, he appeared a hundred feet away, and dark golden light exploded on his body, like the first ray of dawn, dyeing the entire wasteland with a golden halo.

He stood in front of the horde of frenzied charging giant lizards, his right hand outstretched, and the dark gold emblem in his palm suddenly lit up. Dazzling light burst forth from his palm, condensing into a huge dark gold halo in mid-air.

At the center of the halo, the vertical pupil slowly opened.

A beam of dark golden light shot out from the vertical pupil, sweeping across like a sword of judgment, instantly engulfing the dozen or so giant lizards charging at the forefront. The lizards didn't even have time to utter a scream before they were reduced to wisps of smoke in the dark golden light, leaving not even ashes, as if they had never existed.

The remaining monitor lizards were stunned by this terrifying scene, and their charge suddenly stopped. However, the fluorescent blue light in their eyes became even more frenzied, as if controlled by some more powerful will, and they continued to charge forward regardless of everything.

Lin Qiye raised his right hand again and gently clenched his fist.

The dark golden halo suddenly contracted, transforming into countless fine threads of light that spread outwards like a spider web, enveloping the remaining nearly one hundred giant lizards. These threads, as thin as hair yet sharp enough to cut through metal and stone, moved and danced like living things under Lin Qiye's mental control, unleashing a silent massacre within the lizard horde.

The light pierced through the bone armor, flesh, and crystal clusters, cutting the giant lizards' bodies into countless tiny fragments from the inside. One after another, the giant lizards suddenly disintegrated as they ran, turning into piles of shattered bone armor and flesh, scattered across the wasteland, quickly covered by the dust blown by the wind.

The whole process took no more than ten breaths.

When the last giant lizard disintegrated into fragments before Lin Qiye, the entire wasteland fell into a deathly silence. Only the wind howled across the empty wilderness, stirring the scattered fragments of bone armor and creating a soft, clattering sound.

Lin Qiye stood in the center of the corpses, the dark golden light on his body slowly receding and disappearing back into his body. Not a single drop of blood stained his robes, and his breathing was as steady as if he had just done something insignificant.

He turned around and walked back into the group.

Luo Sheng, Shuang'er, Man Ji, Qing Yin, and the nine maids all stood still, staring at him without moving, their expressions as if they were dreaming.

The barbarian princess opened her mouth, and the short-handled battle axe slipped from her hand, hitting the ground with a dull thud. Only then did she seem to be startled awake and suddenly come back to her senses.

"You...you all by yourself...killed hundreds of monitor lizards?" Her voice trembled with disbelief. "What...what was that just now?"

Lin Qiye didn't answer. He simply bent down, picked up the short-handled battle axe she had dropped, and handed it back to her, his voice as calm as if he were remarking on the nice weather: "Let's keep going. Before dark, we need to cross this wasteland and enter the valley ahead."

He took a step and continued walking forward.

The women exchanged glances, and in the end, none of them asked any further questions. They simply picked up their children, gathered their belongings from the ground, and followed him.

Manji walked at the back of the group, holding the battle axe that Lin Qiye had picked up in her hand. Her gaze was fixed on Lin Qiye's back, and her eyes held an extremely complex emotion—shock, awe, and a feeling that she herself could not explain, as if she were getting to know this person all over again.

She glanced down at the battle axe in her hand, then looked up at Lin Qiye's retreating figure, muttering under her breath, "This man is getting more and more outrageous..."

Qingyin walked beside her, and upon hearing her muttering, a very faint smile appeared on her lips. Her voice was very soft: "You're only just realizing?"

The Barbarian Princess was silent for a moment, then grinned and shook her head: "No, I already noticed. I just didn't expect him to be this outrageous."