As San Zai spoke, he casually kicked at the large wooden cart beside him a few times, sending the stacked firewood crashing to the ground. Beneath the scattered wood lay the corpses of several Azure Great Wolves. The woman, initially volatile and enraged, was clearly deeply affected by these wolves; a look of utter disbelief washed over her face, as if struck hard across the cheek, forcing her to silence her outcry.

The man holding the Wolf-Fang Mace hesitated for a moment. Clearly adept at handling situations and social graces, he quickly forced a smile:

“In that case, it was clearly a misunderstanding. With a major enemy at hand, we must naturally exercise extreme caution. Forgive the intrusion.”

The matter should have ended there, but the woman suddenly shrieked again:

“Make them leave the lumber and stones! Our teammates bled for those! We were ambushed, and they must have stood by watching from afar, waiting for us to mutually cripple each other so they could jump in and reap the spoils! Scum like that should be expelled from our Dark Alliance; they are unworthy of being one of us!”

Hearing the woman’s words, not only did the man with the club falter slightly, but the gazes of those standing nearby looking at Fang Senyan and his group turned strange. Zi suddenly stepped forward, fixing the woman with a steady gaze, and stated calmly:

“There is only one thing I wish to tell you.”

The woman holding the silver longbow retorted fearlessly:

“What? It’s too late for begging for mercy now.”

Two piercing points of light suddenly erupted from Zi’s eyes. Anyone who looked at the light felt intense discomfort, as if an incredibly sharp, fine needle were trying to bore deep into their brain, with the needle constantly twisting and turning, rendering resistance impossible.

Immediately after, Zi’s eyes transformed into vertical slits like those of a dragon—a sight Fang Senyan and Reef were familiar with. But something even more bizarre occurred: double pupils appeared in Zi’s eyes!!

Seeing this transformation, Fang Senyan realized that Zi, too, had joined the ranks of the Refiners at some unknown point; her mutated feature was her eyes!

The woman let out a piercing scream and began to flee rapidly, but under Zi’s lock, the eerie cackling laughter of the Cthulhu Demon echoed throughout the area and reverberated across the valley.

It seemed an invisible hand had gripped the woman’s throat; slowly, her feet left the ground, and she hung suspended, kicking uselessly, her face rapidly turning purple. Zi spoke coldly:

“Killing you would take but an instant. Would I need to wait for a fisherman’s benefit?”

The burly man with the Wolf-Fang Mace suddenly sensed something deeply wrong and shouted desperately:

“Don’t!”

But in the instant his shout ended, the woman’s head exploded with a sickening snap, red and white matter spraying outwards like a violently smashed watermelon. Her headless torso dropped to the ground and somehow maintained balance for a few seconds, flailing its arms as if trying to walk, before finally collapsing with a thud.

Reef and Fang Senyan quickly moved to shield Zi, while Ronnie had already melted into the shadows, clearly prepared for combat. Reef looked at the great man whose eyes were wide with fury and said calmly:

“Do you intend to start a full-scale war with us?”

“You… you actually killed someone!” the big man roared. However, the people behind him showed little eagerness to support him.

The man desperately looked towards the two other teams observing nearby, earnestly appealing:

“Everyone saw it. These people are utterly arrogant. Perhaps Halina spoke too rashly, hey, hey…!”

The onlookers, seeing that there was no good show left, had already turned and walked away. To fall out with an entire team over an irrelevant woman—especially one already dead—and that team possessed a terrifyingly powerful MT and likely more than one Refiner? At this stage, when most people were only just Awakening, how addled would one’s brain have to be to step up and play the villain?

Reef looked at the club-wielding man who was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Being rather decent, he tried to smooth things over:

“Sir, you are blocking the path to our transport. Please move aside.”

The man could only step away. He looked as if he desperately wanted to rush forward and challenge the core members of the team to a one-on-one fight, but reason ultimately prevailed. He grudgingly cleared the way. Zi, however, remained grim-faced after her action, looking quite subdued. Fang Senyan inquired and learned that while the Space hadn't explicitly forbidden infighting, it had set up traps. Zi had just killed a member of the Alliance and received a warning: all attribute points temporarily reduced by five for twenty-four hours. It took considerable coaxing to lift her spirits.

Zi’s bold action brought tangible benefits to Fang Senyan’s group. Upon seeing their approach, one team voluntarily yielded their prime spot for stone gathering. Fang Senyan and his crew occupied it without ceremony. The orc slaves and laborers immediately set to work like ants, burning rock and chopping wood, while also continuing to construct crude, giant wheeled carts as Fang Senyan directed. Since this was Fang Senyan’s wrapping-up chore for the day, they needed to make several more.

As dusk settled, Fang Senyan’s team was the last one remaining in the valley. Looking at the four massive carts already overflowing with materials, Reef couldn’t help but feel anxious:

“Boss, perhaps we should leave soon. The team that ambushed us last time only lost four members. Judging by the time, they should be back seeking revenge. While we don’t fear them, we can’t withstand being outnumbered…”

Fang Senyan smiled:

“From their perspective, they wouldn’t come now. The main course of the battle hasn't even begun. Victory isn't measured by how many Contractors you kill, but by breaching the enemy city. At the very start of a war, picking a fight with a tough bone to chew is never wise. The yield from crushing several soft persimmons instead would be far greater, and entirely risk-free.”

“Of course, I’m not pinning my life on the chance that the enemy might not show up.” As he said this, a cold, sharp glint flashed across Fang Senyan’s eyes before he smiled again: “But even if they bring more people, should I be afraid? I’ve just learned a little trick for handling group fights.”

Fang Senyan’s ‘little trick’ might not have been small, but his judgment was remarkably accurate. They waited until they had loaded a full six giant carts with stone and wood, and no ambush arrived. Instead, reinforcements came—official reinforcements, no less.

A force of about five hundred Half-Orc warriors arrived, carrying torches soaked in turpentine that burned fiercely, seemingly unaffected by rain. This force had a high proportion of Savage Orc officers, carried excellent crossbows, and brought several thousand Orc laborers and slaves.

Under their diligence, solid watchtowers were rapidly erected. Most Half-Orcs possessed night vision, and within one or two hours, the entire stone and lumber production zone in the Rossanaki Valley was secured by the Half-Orc army.

“They realize the importance of resource gathering spots now, eh?” Reef mused, watching the industrious army. “So, do we still need to work tonight?”

Fang Senyan flatly refused:

“Absolutely not. One can imagine that things will get very lively here after dark. Those people will never miss an opportunity to rack up contribution points. Since most of the attention will be focused here, the camp will face less harassment. We’ll haul this batch back and then sleep.”

Ronnie, being an assassin, immediately looked dejected:

“But, this…”

Fang Senyan looked at Ronnie:

“I know your lethality in the dark, but we are a team, not a solitary fighter. Apart from you, none of us excels at fighting at night; the team’s combat effectiveness would be severely reduced. Sending you alone here carries too great a risk. More importantly, establishing a garrison here implies the Dark side plans to hold the position long-term. If there were a truly huge profit to be made, we could come back tomorrow; once things settle into a routine, chaos tends to decrease.”

Ronnie always listened intently to Fang Senyan because he had witnessed firsthand on the Iron Blood Planet that those who refused to listen ended up buried there.

The next immediate and practical problem facing the group was how to transport the giant wheeled carts, heavily laden with stone and wood, back to the camp. It turned out that Mr. Kurutgo, previously kept as a trump card, showcased his new strength in this task—a dozen Earth Elementals, temporarily granted life, crawled out of the ground and diligently, tirelessly pushed the carts.

Kurutgo’s current disguise was that of a mysterious man cloaked in a yellow robe. As long as he avoided direct melee combat, he could maintain this image of a top-tier Earth Mage—even Ronnie could foresee the awkward predicament an enemy might face if fooled by this appearance: finally closing the distance only to find that the perceived lamb to be slaughtered had suddenly transformed into a monstrous, twin-headed, single-eyed behemoth… what utter despair that must be!