The Dark Night Forest

Moreover, from what Li Qinghe had told him, the rewards for killing Aberration Feral Beasts were noticeably greater than those from killing ordinary ones.

*Was that also a decision made by the will of the Land of Origin?*

*Probably to push the Gene Warriors up here to hunt Aberrations as much as possible.*

Lu Yuan turned the thought over privately.

The warship swept through Sky-Mending City as Li Qinghe spoke, passing various distinctive structures — Auction Houses, Training Halls, and the like. Whatever existed in the Lower Layer had its counterpart here; Gene Warriors in the Upper Layer still needed to cultivate, after all.

There was also the Merit Hall. Lu Yuan and the others briefly stopped in to have a look. Much like the Auction House, it was divided into small private rooms, each fitted with a light screen displaying a catalog of treasures. Items could be redeemed using Merits accumulated on one's Gene Battle Mark.

They spent several hours following Li Qinghe through Sky-Mending City's main facilities.

The area immediately surrounding the city had relatively few Feral Beasts, but beyond that, creatures were densely packed — far more dangerous than anywhere in the Lower Layer.

Most Feral Beasts, including Aberrations, held their own territories. Some of those territories even contained cities established by Battle Saints and War Gods.

These cities served as staging grounds for the Gene Warriors who came to hunt. Situated within beast-controlled territory, they faced regular attacks, which made them far from safe.

Within the Land of Origin, Battle King Rank warriors were rare — but from Battle Sovereign upward, numbers gradually increased, and most Battle Emperors would regularly venture into the Upper Layer to hunt.

The resources they needed had long grown scarce in the Lower Layer. The Upper Layer was where cultivation could advance rapidly.

Battle Saints and War Gods were essentially permanent fixtures of the Upper Layer, only occasionally descending below.

The Upper Layer's area was staggeringly vast, encompassing regions of wildly different danger levels. Some areas were so lethal that even a War God could find themselves fighting for their life.

Those zones, however, were buried deep in the interior — far removed from Sky-Mending City and any of the established outposts.

By the time Lu Yuan had formed a broad mental picture of the Upper Layer, their warship had descended into a Residential Zone — rows of tall buildings clustered together into a living district.

Li Qinghe smiled. "Rent in Sky-Mending City isn't cheap. The three of us normally stay here when we need to rest. With you here now, though, we'll need to move into a slightly larger unit — otherwise there won't be enough bedrooms."

Shuangyue's expression turned playful. She glanced at Li Qinghe. "Oh? You're not going to share a room with your little Yuan?"

Li Qinghe's smile froze. Color crept into her cheeks, and she shot Shuangyue a look. "Then why don't *you* share a room with him?"

"I wouldn't mind at all. It's a certain someone else I'd worry about."

Shuangyue kept her gaze fixed on Li Qinghe, grinning.

Lu Yuan glanced at Shuangyue, then at Li Qinghe, then caught Si Tingyu's eyes on him from the side. He said nothing.

Si Tingyu looked at him briefly, then said in a perfectly level tone, "All right. Let's head down."

That ended the bickering. They disembarked and made their way into the Residential Zone.

The rental process was no different from the Lower Layer — no surprise there. Both were cities within the Land of Origin; same system, same procedures.

Li Qinghe quickly cancelled their existing three-bedroom unit. The four of them talked it over and settled on a large four-bedroom suite: each bedroom with its own bathroom, a smart robot housekeeper capable of cooking, a generous balcony, and a Gravity Room for cultivation.

Lu Yuan had to admit the rent really was steep. A place like this ran thirty Seventh-tier Spirit Crystals a day.

Still, his Spirit Crystal supply was ample. They could stay as long as they needed.

Once everyone had chosen their rooms and gathered in the living room, Li Qinghe smiled and said,

"It's Yuan's first time in the Upper Layer. Should we head out for a hunt together? What do you think?"

Si Tingyu gave a small nod. "Let's go take a look."

Shuangyue crossed her arms and smiled. "No objections here."

All three turned to Lu Yuan. He naturally had none either — he was genuinely curious about what lay beyond the city walls.

"Fine by me. Where are we headed?"

The three of them fell quiet for a moment, then Li Qinghe spoke up.

"How about west? The Dark Night Forest?"

Shuangyue and Si Tingyu each considered it briefly, then both nodded.

"The beasts there top out at Emperor Grade, and Aberrations aren't especially common. It's not too far from the city either — sounds good to me. Last time we were there, we actually spotted an Emperor Grade beast. With Yuan along, the four of us should be able to take it down, right?"

"Assuming no one else has found it first," Si Tingyu said.

Since it was his first visit to the Upper Layer, Lu Yuan hadn't offered much of an opinion — he'd been watching the others deliberate. They seemed appropriately cautious.

"Then that's where we go. Let's head out now!"

Li Qinghe said with a smile.

They left the Residential Zone. Shuangyue was about to summon her warship when Li Qinghe stopped her and looked at Lu Yuan with a grin. "Let Yuan take us there — his speed is faster."

She'd traveled with him during that Aberration Event. She knew exactly how formidable his spatial movement was.

"Yuan is faster?"

Shuangyue blinked, a flicker of surprise crossing her face.

Si Tingyu nodded. "His spatial movement ability is extremely powerful. If he brings us along with him, it genuinely is faster."

That settled it for Shuangyue. She smiled. "No complaints, then."

All three looked to him. Lu Yuan had no objections — since his spatial movement had grown stronger, he'd stopped needing vehicles for travel entirely.

"Works for me," he said. "West — which direction exactly?"

Li Qinghe pointed, and he nodded. He placed his hands on Li Qinghe's and Si Tingyu's shoulders, then looked over at Shuangyue.

"Shuangyue, hold on to Li Qinghe's shoulder. Don't let go."

Shuangyue nodded and rested her hand on Li Qinghe's other shoulder, mirroring his grip.

He activated Spatial Walker, and the four of them vanished.

During the jumps, Lu Yuan noticed that space in the Upper Layer was profoundly unstable — spatial storms flickered in and out without warning, and pockets of space simply shattered mid-transit.

His Saint Grade spatial gene made it a non-issue for him personally. Still, to avoid alarming the others, he didn't leap straight to the destination in one go. Instead, he covered the distance in segments — several hundred thousand kilometers per jump — and arrived at a massive forest some seven million kilometers from Sky-Mending City in just a handful of hops.

The forest was immense, roughly comparable in scale to the Demon Dragon Mountain Range's woodlands — perhaps even slightly larger.

The region surrounding it was cloaked in darkness. The sky above pressed down in a gloom deeper than anywhere else they'd passed through — as though this place existed in a permanent state of night.

Lu Yuan swept his gaze upward. In the darkness, clusters of green flame flared and guttered at irregular intervals.

*That green fire resembles the green dog's aura.* He raised an eyebrow curiously.

"Li Qinghe, what are those green flames?"

Li Qinghe watched one blaze up, then vanish just as quickly.

"It's an Aberration phenomenon. Some Aberration Feral Beasts actually emerge from those flames. The flames themselves carry powerful corrosive properties and are extremely difficult to extinguish. At our current level, direct contact would put us in serious danger."

Lu Yuan gave a slow nod. *An Aberration phenomenon — that explains why it resembles the green dog's aura.*

Si Tingyu scanned their surroundings and said, "Nothing unusual nearby. Let's move in."

She materialized her combat armor — striking crimson-gold plating — leveled a massive spear ahead of her, and took point into the dark forest.

As a Guardian Type warrior, leading the way was her natural role.

Shuangyue smiled and gave her Staff a casual wave. The earth cracked open, and two wooden humanoid figures rose from the soil — each over four meters tall, radiating powerful auras, gripping wooden spears. These were Shuangyue's wooden guardians, their presence clearly at Battle Sovereign level. She directed them to take up positions on the flanks.

Meanwhile, tendrils of dark mist curled around Li Qinghe's form, and two black silhouettes peeled away from her. Lu Yuan glanced over and recognized it immediately — Shadow Clones. The same category of Combat Technique as his own.

The two shadows streaked away like shooting stars and dissolved into the darkness.

Li Qinghe smiled and explained, "In our trio, Tingyu is the Guardian Type — she opens the path ahead. I handle scouting and assault. Shuangyue handles control and healing."

Shuangyue picked up the thread. "Between the three of us, we actually work fairly well together. The limitation was always our numbers — just three people meant there were plenty of areas we couldn't push into. Now that you're here, we can reach a lot more places."

Li Qinghe nodded. "Exactly. With Yuan here, our combat strength takes a real jump — more ground to cover. Yuan can take on the Guardian Type role and share the load with Tingyu, while *also* pulling double duty as our Assault. And if things go badly sideways, we've got his spatial ability as an escape route."

All three women's eyes lit up with quiet anticipation as she finished, as though the future suddenly looked considerably more promising.

Lu Yuan smiled along with them.

*In the short term, staying with them makes sense — good way to learn the Upper Layer's terrain. But once I find hunting grounds that suit me, I'll probably need to split off.*

The gap between his true strength and theirs was simply too great. His combat capability currently matched that of a Battle Saint.

Still, before he went his own way, he planned to use his Evolution ability to evolve some treasures for them — give them a meaningful strength boost. In a place as dangerous as the Upper Layer, more power was never wasted.

And ideally, he'd want some way for them to alert him the moment they were in danger, so he could arrive without delay.

*That might actually be doable,* he thought. *My spatial ability is strong enough — as long as I know the instant they're in trouble, I can get there fast.*

There was another option: hide a few Shadow Clones in their shadows.

If danger arose, the clones could act immediately. At his current level, a Shadow Clone's combat power could be roughly counted as Saint-tier — and a Saint who wielded spatial movement at that. Even against an enemy that completely outclassed them, the clone could seize them and teleport everyone to safety without issue.

That line of thinking brought back a memory — the Shadow Clones he'd once hidden in Li Xinghai's and Si Qi's shadows. The clones shared his perception, meaning he'd effectively been watching through their eyes the whole time...

*...Which was basically spying on them, wasn't it?*

A wave of awkwardness washed over him. When the subjects were crusty old men like Li Xinghai and Si Qi, the thought was merely unpleasant — the kind that made his skin crawl. But if the subjects were Li Qinghe and the others... *well...*

Not that he'd actually go through with it. That wasn't who he was. And beyond the question of character — his true strength would come to light eventually. If they ever discovered he'd been watching through their shadows this entire time, they'd probably end him.

No. He'd keep it reactive — an automatic emergency response, not surveillance. Clones that only activated when danger was already upon them, alerting his true self at that moment.

He was still working through the idea when he paused mid-step and glanced ahead.

At his current level, extending his perception across the surrounding area required no effort at all. Thirty kilometers in that direction, coiled among the branches of a great tree, lay a massive black serpent roughly a hundred meters long — completely motionless, utterly still, lying in silent wait for prey.

All along its body, strange tendrils twisted and writhed on their own, curling in a way that made his stomach turn.

The Aberration's aura rolled off it unmistakably.

*So this is an Aberration Feral Beast from the Upper Layer.* The level of corruption seemed moderate — roughly comparable to the Aberrations he'd faced during the royal family trial Yeye had participated in.

The creature registered as Emperor Grade. Its Aberration enhancement gave it a marginal edge over a typical Emperor Grade beast — but it posed absolutely no threat to the three women.

He didn't move. They'd reach it on their own before long.

At that moment, he turned his head again. To the left, over a hundred kilometers out, a column of more than thirty Gene Warriors advanced steadily in their direction — each standing roughly five meters tall, and each bearing two heads.

Lu Yuan's eyebrow rose. He split off a Shadow Clone, let it sink silently into the darkness, and sent it drifting toward the approaching group.

Beside him, the three women noticed nothing at all.