Outer Gods invade, stuff them all into your equipment inventory.

There were no monsters near the city gate.

Monsters also possess basic intelligence.

Having been killed so many times, one also learns which places are dangerous and should not be approached.

Unless it's during a demonic tide, demons rarely launch attacks on the city wall area.

The so-called "demonic tide" refers to the annual event in which large numbers of demons attack a gathering place.

The arrival of the annual demonic tide is like an inescapable curse.

The specific causes of the demonic tide are complex and vary from person to person.

Experts have yet to come up with a widely accepted scientific explanation.

Some scholars believe this is related to the dramatic fluctuations in the earth's ley line magic cycle.

Some scholars, however, believe that this is the result of a sudden explosion caused by the continuous accumulation of dimensional energy.

At irregular times each year, monster lairs spawn a massive influx of new individuals.

The overcrowding of the monster lairs and some mysterious force drove them out of the lairs like a black tide.

These monsters, driven by their destructive instincts, will launch reckless attacks on the nearest Federation settlement.

"This... is the Demon Tide."

During a demonic tide, the ferocity and individual strength of monsters will increase significantly, and large numbers of mutated monsters that are rarely seen in normal times may even appear frequently.

For every Federation settlement, each demonic tide is a test of life and death.

Those who can hold out will live; those who cannot will die.

These relentless offensives typically last for several days, during which time the defenders on the city walls barely have time to close their eyes.

They must always be in a fighting stance to defend against attacks from monsters.

The vast majority of the bomb craters on the ground were formed at that time.

Of course, accidents can happen sometimes.

The life force released by the heroes as they enter and leave the city walls will also attract monsters, creating a brief "magnetic" effect that causes some monsters to attack the gathering place in advance.

Therefore, in general, warriors rarely gather in large groups to enter or leave the city gates.

Sometimes, when heroes are being chased by monsters, they have no choice but to lead the monsters closer to the city gate.

Use the powerful firepower inside the settlement to kill the monsters that are chasing them.

This is usually a last resort when faced with a desperate situation.

Few people would do this voluntarily unless it is necessary.

Moreover, heroes who do this are usually severely punished.

Sean took out the area information panel and looked at the intermittent signal on it.

"As soon as we left the shielding area of ​​the city wall, the signal strength dropped to less than one-fifth of the normal level."

"At this rate of decay, if we go another few dozen meters, even the basic connections will likely be completely severed..."

In the wilderness far from any settlement, maintaining stable long-distance communication or obtaining real-time map data is a luxury.

Inside the settlement, there are numerous communication towers providing coverage.

These signal towers together form an invisible communication network.

It can not only provide full signal strength for information boards in the area, enabling real-time communication and high-definition map synchronization, but also continuously scan a certain range around it using a special frequency band.

"In other words, this is also a kind of life sensor."

Any abnormal energy fluctuations or large-scale monster life reactions detected will be immediately fed back to the command center within the Heroes' Guild.

These signal towers are key infrastructure for maintaining order and security within the settlement.

The cost of deploying signal towers in the field is too high, and the daily maintenance is an unimaginable astronomical figure.

After several failed attempts, the Heroes' Guild completely abandoned its plan to establish a large-scale fixed signal network in the wilderness.

"It is said that a special device for temporarily providing signals that can be carried on the person has been manufactured."

"It's like having a portable WiFi device."

"However, that thing has a very low production volume and its performance is not very stable."

"Large-scale rollout is still a long way off."

Sean touched the tablet screen of the area information board, zooming in to the maximum extent on the map of the Eastern Wilderness region displayed on it.

As Sean looked at the map, he sorted through the relevant clues he knew:

"The forum post says that the location where the spatial slime was discovered is inside a newly spawned slime monster's lair."

"Currently, there are 78 slime monster lairs in the Eastern Wilderness area."

The post on the forum was made three months ago.

"This way, we can filter out those monster lairs that have been around for a long time."

Sean's gaze swept across the glowing dots on the map that represented slime lairs, and he manually started the filtering process.

"Let's set a six-month timeframe for it!"

The screening process began, and the light spots in most of the monster lairs that had existed for more than half a year quickly dimmed and disappeared.

Finally, only seventeen dots remained on the map.

"Then... monster lairs that appeared after the posting date were also removed."

Monster lairs that appear during this time period are obviously not the target.

This reduces the number of monster lairs that need to be eliminated by ten.

Only seven slime monster lairs remain marked on the map.

"It's much simpler now!"

The amount of work that needs to be done has been reduced by more than half.

"As long as what's said in the forum posts is true."

"As long as that monster's lair isn't wiped out during this period."

"The Space Slime is located in one of these seven slime monster lairs."

The number of monster lairs in the wild is not fixed.

Due to the influence of dimensional rifts, new monster lairs often form.

Similarly, monster lairs often disappear under the hero's extermination.

This is a dynamic process.

"However, most heroes are not very proactive in clearing out slime monster lairs."

"The Heroes' Guild has not issued any mandatory clearing missions for slime monster lairs in the Eastern Wilderness region in the past three months."

"There is a very high probability that this slime monster's lair will be preserved."

Sean saved the settings and, while there was still a network signal, cached the map content one last time.

While the cache progress bar slowly moved forward, I quickly browsed the list of quests from the Heroes' Guild related to the Eastern Wilderness region.

Indeed, there are only a few bounties targeting specific high-risk variants.

The Heroes' Guild did not issue any large-scale collective missions to wipe out slime lairs.

This information reassured him a lot.

A soft beep sounded indicating that the caching was complete.

Sean took one last look at the seven isolated purple dots on the map, memorizing their locations, before closing the information panel.

"Energy is precious, and I have nowhere to charge my device in this desolate wilderness."

Every little bit helps.

Sean carefully stored the information board back in the protective sheath on his waist, then strode forward in the direction of one of the slime monster lairs he remembered.

"According to the coordinates on the map, this monster's lair is about twelve kilometers away from the East Gate."

"If I move quickly, I should be able to get there before noon."