Enemies Are All Nourishment for My Fungi..

[I believe it, those old powerful nations, aside from being good at financial stuff, everything else is bullshit—they've eaten through their capital. Facing such an enemy, they'd crumble like brittle shells.]

[Bullshit, don't even think about it, if we could beat them back then, we can do the same now.]

[With so many Secret Realms in the country, it's impossible that only the Five Bridges Secret Realm has enemies showing up. What about the other Secret Realms?]

[Damn! Right, what about the other Secret Realms? Are there really no enemies coming in?]

[I'm suddenly envious of East Ridge City, their Secret Realm is closed.]

[Yeah, why is it only the East Ridge Secret Realm that's been shut down?]

[Please, dear God, close the Secret Realm here too. My place is even poorer than East Ridge City, yet they insist on building a city. I don't know what they were thinking back then; wouldn't it have been enough just to build a safe zone?]

[Have you ever considered that the city you're in actually had no city structure to begin with and was developed spontaneously by the families inside the safe zone?]

[Don't worry, the warriors in the Secret Realm aren't vegetarians. Their mission is to annihilate any enemies that appear within the Secret Realm. Those forty heads are definitely the work of our warriors, a warning to other hidden enemies.]

[The person above has a point.]

As more and more people across the country were praising the valiant invincibility of the Five Bridges Secret Realm's warriors, the atmosphere at the Five Bridges City Hall was serious and tense. In the largest conference room within the City Hall, a web conference was being conducted in conjunction with the National Capital. Everyone on and off the screen knew it wasn't their warriors who had done it.

"Can you find out who did it?"

"It's difficult to trace; we don't even know if the person who did this has left the Secret Realm."

"How about the forensic team? Have they entered the Secret Realm?"

"They've gone in already. The squad brought a helicopter; they'll arrive tonight, and the preliminary autopsy reports should be coming by tomorrow at the earliest."

"The person who did this is very bold, stacking heads like a tower – this isn't ordinary courage. A novice can't do this; I tend to think it's the work of an experienced old hand."

"The physical constitution and bone density of our enemies are stronger than us Blue Star people. To sever their heads, a saw is needed, and the person who acts must have a strong psychological fortitude."

"To put it unpleasantly, a normal person can't do it."

"Moreover, the heads were thrown beside the stream; what about the bodies? From the photos, there's no other bloodstains nearby."

"Is the individual a Space Awakened person? Or do they have companions? Did they take the bodies away after the deed was done?"

Some rubbed their temples in frustration.

"Why take away the bodies? To eat them?"

"The heads are unharmed, right? All forty heads are undamaged, so the cause of death must be on the bodies. If they took the bodies, do they not want us to find out how the enemy died?"

"What's there not to let people know? Killing the enemy on the battlefield, stabbing them with a hundred holes, it's all normal."

"Forty heads, each looking peaceful in death, it seems the person who did this must be stronger than we imagined. Taking away the bodies, could it be that the bodies were not a pleasant sight? Have you ever seen how those mutant plants and small mutant beasts with paralytic and anesthetic effects feed? The prey seems to be asleep, but their bodies have been nibbled away a long time ago."

"It's hard to guess, without the bodies, everything is conjecture. It could also be just a simple act of cutting off heads and piling them up as a warning, and the bodies were taken deep into the Secret Realm to feed those carnivorous animals."

"How did the person who did this get in? How did they leave afterward? How long ago did they leave? The private warrior team that took the photos didn't capture many details. We still have to wait for the forensic team to send back more clues."

"Actually, this isn't the first incident. The enemy has been silently appearing one after another for a while now, but those were all wiped out by the warriors within the Secret Realm. This is the first incident committed by an outsider and exposed to the public eye."

"Let it be exposed, the enemy's attempts at re-invasion can't be kept secret for long anyway."

"That mysterious altar we dug up before might be their true passage for entering and exiting. To cut off their path, we still have to do our utmost to excavate and remove all of those altars."

"The problem is with such a vast Secret Realm, we don't know how many altars there are, how much manpower and resources we need to invest in finding and excavating them. If it were plains terrain, we could try radar searches, but how do we search in places like Five Bridges Secret Realm with its mountains?"

"Moreover, we haven't cracked the mysterious runes on the altars. But we speculate that they might be the keys to activating the passages. Putting such dangerous things anywhere is a problem in itself. If we just store them in some warehouse, once the enemy activates it from the other side, we won't even have a buffer."

"Where are they now?"

"They're kept in the personal spaces of the logistics personnel. We dare not take them out. Fortunately, we've only found three, and we let one person take care of them, then reassigned that person to do clerical work."

"What's the situation like online now?"

"Everyone is envying East Ridge City, their Secret Realm is gone, which ended up being a good thing."

"The disappearance of the East Ridge Secret Realm is also very strange, without any warning."

"It would be great if all the Secret Realms nationwide could just disappear and close like that. If the enemy is outside our borders, we could bomb them at will. But if they run into the heartlands, the newly built cities would once again become ruins."

"The enemy's endless supply of troops is also strange. Does their world have such a large population?"

"All of the secrets will one day be solved only by heading to the enemy's world."

The virtual meeting went on until a consensus was reached: to publicly disclose that enemy advance teams have started to appear in Secret Realms all over the country. And also, without taking credit, to clarify that the beheadings at the Five Bridges Secret Realm were not done by the warriors.

After the evening news announced this message to the country, the web's trending searches exploded, with "envying East Ridge City" climbing to the second place on the hot search list. The announcement came in first.

Online, everyone was asking what kind of divine being had killed forty enemies, whether it was an individual or a team, and if they themselves had the chance to catch a ride on their coattails.

Meanwhile, Ye Nai received a phone call from her mother, Yu Qing, telling her not to mess around outside because it was too dangerous. Now East Ridge City was the safest place, and she should go back to find a man to marry and live a peaceful life taking care of a family.

Ye Nai laughed in irritation, but she didn't argue with her mother on the phone. Her mother didn't know she was an Awakener, so it was natural for her to react this way. Having worked as a junior accountant for over twenty years, her mother's vision and thinking were limited. Previously, she had pointed out a good path for her, but now, she was concerned about the dangers of the outside world and wanted to retreat.

As for Yu Qing's thoughts, Ye Nai had no objections since her mother was approaching retirement age and wanting a peaceful retirement was understandable. But as she backed down, it would also mean the end of her younger sister's education.

Not in the mood to drag on the conversation with her mother, Ye Nai hung up the phone. Waiting until midnight, she used the East Ridge Secret Realm as a transfer point and returned to East Ridge City in one step, standing on the balcony of the house her mother rented.

Through a crack in the door, she first released a spore to put her mother to sleep. Then she went to her younger sister's room, lifted the covers, wrapped her up in a thick fleece blanket, and transported her into the East Ridge Secret Realm, landing in a military camp within District No. 2.