Chapter 552 Honey Badger, Toad

Xia Nan couldn't be more familiar with the wounds on the coyotes before him.

Dark purple bruises marked where skin and muscle had been battered by crude, blunt weapons, alongside small punctures likely caused by sharp objects like rusty nails piercing the flesh.

A few looked like slashes from sharp human weapons, though a closer inspection revealed jagged edges, as if they had been sawed open. Flecks of grayish-yellow rust could even be seen in the mangled, outwardly curled flesh.

The wound characteristics alone told him they had been inflicted by shoddily made yet inexplicably hard wooden clubs, and by rusted swords scavenged from adventurer corpses and left unmaintained for years.

Coupled with the lingering stench on the coyotes—a filthy, nauseating, murky odor that Xia Nan couldn't help but find inexplicably intoxicating and familiar.

How could he not know what the hunting coyotes had run into?

Goblins!

It was goblins!

His beastly pupils shrank and his heartbeat suddenly accelerated, his chest heaving as his breathing grew rapid.

His wolf tail wagging furiously like a propeller, Xia Nan felt an indescribable urgency well up within him.

To the other intelligent races of this world and the ordinary beasts of the wild alike, goblins were an absolute scourge—a complete burden and danger.

If a goblin tribe lived this close to the pack, it would eventually threaten the coyotes' lives.

To repay the coyotes for feeding him recently, Xia Nan decided to go clean out the pests himself.

Well—and to satisfy a bit of his own personal interest.

Frankly, ever since leaving Barracuda Bay, it had been a long time since he last got his hands on any goblins.

Although he had recently picked up fishing as a hobby, the measly catches and fickle luck simply couldn't compare to the sheer exhilaration of dealing with goblins.

Since this opportunity had presented itself in the Secret Realm, Xia Nan naturally wasn't going to waste it.

At the very least, he had to go over and take a look.

Even if there were only two or three, casually slaughtering them would do wonders for his mood.

Of course, despite his surging emotions, Xia Nan maintained his rationality.

He could still use his combat techniques and Feats, but this wolf body clearly lacked the hardiness of a human physique, and apart from the [Dream Weaving Corridor], he couldn't use a single piece of equipment.

In this state, he naturally couldn't just openly waltz into a goblin lair like he would in the real world.

He had to observe the scale and structure of this goblin tribe first. If elite individuals like hobgoblins or bugbears were present, it would be perfectly viable to steer clear for now and return to satisfy his cravings once he had grown stronger.

With these thoughts in mind, Xia Nan left the Vine-Horned Sheep he had hunted for the pack to sustain them while they recovered.

He then sniffed the familiar lingering scent in the air, wagged his tail, and headed into the bushes the coyotes had returned from.

Meanwhile, in the treetops not far away, a palm-sized, brown-feathered sparrow stood quietly on a branch.

Unlike the ignorant purity of an ordinary beast, its avian eyes flickered with a glint of intelligence, reflecting the black wolf as it vanished into the woods below.

It tilted its head.

"Flap."

The soft sound of beating wings echoed in the air.

Xia Nan's search went exceedingly smoothly.

It had been far too long since he last heard the beautiful, terror-stricken shrieks of a dying goblin, far too long since he felt the satisfying sensation of a blade slicing through their frail flesh.

Perhaps because of this craving, aided by a lupine creature's keen sense of smell, the goblin stench lingering in the air seemed to form a visible trail before his eyes, guiding him straight to his destination.

The bloodline of the Temple Nightwalker Wolf's Night Fog Forest subspecies allowed his light and nimble body to easily leap and bound through the tree canopy.

Occasionally, he dodged venomous snakes hanging from the branches and raided a few bird nests along the way for travel snacks.

After advancing through the Deep Forest for about half an hour, the goblin stench in the air reached its absolute peak.

As if spotting something, Xia Nan's paws suddenly skidded to a halt.

Soft pads touched down on the leaf-strewn ground as his agile, shadow-like body dropped silently from above.

Ahead of him, wedged into the center of an oak trunk that had been violently gouged by inferior weapons, was a shoddily crafted wooden board.

Painted on the board in striking, blood-red strokes was a symbol Xia Nan recognized:

A shield cleaved down the middle. The left half depicted a hammer commonly used by dwarves, while the right half featured a Barbarian's greataxe.

"Raging Tide Warband?"

Xia Nan had a decent memory and naturally recognized the emblem of this Adventurer Squad.

However, seeing the Raging Tide Warband's emblem appear in such a manner here inevitably made him think deeper.

"So—a member of the Raging Tide Warband must have been pulled into the Secret Realm and possessed a goblin?" Xia Nan guessed.

However, he completely disagreed with their decision to voluntarily expose their identity like this.

Inside the Secret Realm, teammates were scattered everywhere.

He understood the motive—using a universally recognized symbol like a squad emblem to gather familiar teammates as quickly as possible and gain a group advantage in this world.

But on the other hand, to some extent, the adventurers' beastly exteriors were their most natural disguise.

They might act out of place among wild animals due to their intelligent souls, but at least their factions couldn't be instantly judged by their appearances.

To put it bluntly, even if "Algae Scale" Dodd were standing right in front of him, Xia Nan wouldn't strike until confirming his identity, just to avoid hitting an ally by mistake.

By acting this way, the adventurer possessing the goblin was essentially announcing their identity to any passing adventurer who saw the sign.

If they encountered an enemy who had possessed a powerful beast—given the strength of a green-skinned goblin—they would likely be unable to resist.

Then again, the other party clearly hadn't realized the Secret Realm's mechanics yet. They didn't know that Adventurers could evolve their life tiers through slaughter.

Otherwise, given the experience of the Adventurers capable of entering this Secret Realm, they almost certainly wouldn't have done something so dangerous.

Staring at the emblem board wedged into the trunk before him, Xia Nan shifted his paws on the ground, a hint of hesitation flashing in his eyes.

Although he had developed some unique quirks after transmigrating, he wasn't like those degenerate gamblers or junkies whose desires overpowered their reason.

Xia Nan craved slaughter, and he knew very well that killing Adventurers could yield precious combat technique proficiency.

But if the goblin before him was possessed by a member of the Raging Tide Warband—who had previously shown him clear goodwill—it wouldn't be appropriate for him to attack knowing their identity.

'Perhaps I can go negotiate and exchange some information about the Secret Realm with them?' Xia Nan considered this as he hurried toward the area where the goblin scent was thickest.

Soon, a Goblin Lair hidden in the bushes came into view.

The cave entrance was relatively small, and there were no traps set in the nearby woods. Clearly, elite individuals like Bugbears or Hobgoblins were absent.

As for the exact scale—

Xia Nan carefully observed the faint paths trampled into the nearby meadow by repeated foot traffic.

"Probably between eight to twelve of them."

If they were just ordinary goblins, even if a conflict broke out, it would be well within his ability to handle.

He was just pondering how he should reveal his identity.

Suddenly, Xia Nan's expression froze as his moist, pitch-black nose twitched.

He caught a faint whiff of blood wafting out from the dimly lit cave.

"Hmm!?"

His vigilance instantly spiked.

Before he could even react, the sharp wolf ears atop his head suddenly pricked up.

A somewhat heavy, slow set of footsteps echoed from deep within the cave.

His thoughts raced.

The soft pads under his paws making no sound, Xia Nan quickly scaled into the canopy of a thick oak tree nearby, moving with a weightless grace uncharacteristic of ordinary wolves.

He startled a small sparrow that happened to be resting there.

Using his pitch-black fur, he hid within the shadows of the canopy and peered down at the Goblin Lair through the gaps in the leaves.

Xia Nan's reaction was extremely timely.

Scarcely three minutes after he took to the tree, a lean, powerful figure slowly emerged from the cave entrance, accompanied by heavy panting and the subtle scraping of something dragging against the gravel.

It was a honey badger of unusually massive proportions.

Its shoulder height nearly reached an adult human's waist. Its signature silver-gray fur extended from the top of its head all the way to the base of its spine, and beneath the thick fur and fat, the shifting outlines of its muscles could be faintly seen as it moved.

Looking as if it had just survived a brutal battle, its body was covered in dirt and wounds. Gnarled flesh near the back of its shoulders oozed thick blood, and both its jaws and claws were stained crimson.

At this moment, the honey badger was carrying a goblin corpse in its mouth.

Its powerful jaws were clamped firmly around the goblin's snapped neck, leaving the creature's spindly, twig-like limbs to dangle and drag limply.

A wisp of faint blue light—visible only to participants of the ritual—wafted continuously from the goblin corpse and absorbed into the honey badger's body.

'Another Adventurer?' Xia Nan was slightly surprised, his attention subconsciously drifting back to his physical body in reality.

Sure enough, among the two squads of Adventurers facing off by the coast in his vision, another mature-looking, middle-aged male Adventurer belonging to the Raging Tide Warband briefly broke out of his frozen, levitating state. The blue light around him faded as a sickly pallor surfaced on his cheeks, and he slowly touched down.

Clearly, the giant honey badger below that had just raided the Goblin Lair was also a beast possessed by an Adventurer.

He couldn't help but feel a subtle sense of irony.

After all, he had just been thinking about how dangerous it was for the goblin Adventurer to leave that emblem behind.

And now, not long after, he was looking right at their corpse.

It truly made one sigh at the fickleness of fate.

At the same time, the goblin's death and the honey badger's appearance had also disrupted Xia Nan's plans.

He had originally intended to negotiate with this Adventurer from the Raging Tide Warband to see if they could cooperate during the rest of the Secret Realm.

Now, however, the chance for communication was gone.

And if the honey badger had attacked the goblin Adventurer precisely because it spotted the emblem and confirmed their identity...

Then, even if there wasn't an explicit hostility toward Xia Nan—a temporary member of the Blade of Vengeance—they definitely didn't belong to the same faction either.

Under these circumstances, revealing himself rashly would likely trigger an attack.

But by the same token, if he could confirm they weren't in the same faction—then Xia Nan naturally wouldn't need to hold back.

Turning the honey badger directly into combat technique proficiency didn't seem like a bad idea.

Down in the clearing, the honey badger—who seemed to be facing its first evolution after dragging the goblin corpse out of the burrow—froze in place, a flash of human-like astonishment appearing in its eyes.

As the glowing blue specks flooded into its body, its form visibly began to swell.

He knew that if he was going to strike, now was the perfect opportunity.

Just as he was mulling it over, he seemed to catch sight of an anomaly.

His golden wolf eyes shifted slightly, focusing on the back of the honey badger's neck.

He hadn't noticed it earlier due to the angle.

But now, as the honey badger's stiffening body expanded, a grotesque, bloated silhouette quietly emerged from behind its broad crown.

A... toad?

He could see a bizarre toad of a sickly, deep purple hue clinging to the back of the honey badger's neck, sitting upon it as if it were a throne.

Its back resembled rotting skin, densely covered in tumor-like pustules of varying sizes. Under the sunlight, he could even see the dark purple pus stretching the swollen epidermis tight.

A few of the largest pustules stretched the skin until it was translucent, quivering with every slight throb of the toad's throat, as if the thin membrane would burst the next second and splatter its nauseating, viscous pus.

Xia Nan had never seen this type of toad before.

Yet for some reason, even though it was smaller than his wolf body's skull, staring at its ugly, dark purple form gave him an inexplicably intense sense of danger—one far stronger than what he felt from the giant honey badger currently evolving under the blue light.

'Perhaps I should retreat for now?' he warned himself vigilantly.

But as if in response to the alarm blaring in Xia Nan's mind, the toad that had been resting quietly on the back of the honey badger's neck suddenly raised its ugly, moist, bulbous head.

Its murky yet disturbingly human horizontal pupils seemed to have detected the presence of the black wolf in the canopy.

A cold, terrifying gaze locked onto the area where Xia Nan was hiding from afar.

"Croak—"

A drum-like croak abruptly shattered the tranquility of the forest.

A pustule on its back, swollen to the brim with venom, suddenly shriveled and deflated.

In its place, a thin thread of compressed toxic pus shot wildly from the dark purple toad's mouth.

Sizzle!

Branches and leaves were instantly pierced through. The highly corrosive venom caused the fibers around the holes to rapidly wither and char, melting into a viscous, black-smoke-emitting liquid that slowly dripped away.

And the black wolf, originally crouched in the canopy, landed nimbly on the ground.

Its golden eyes locked onto the honey badger and the toad before him.