Before dawn, in what should have been a picturesque mountain trail during the day, a group of people marched silently.
The black-clad procession moved silently, with thirteen brown coffins resting steadily and gently on their shoulders.
"Crack!"
The secluded hill was not high, and the funeral party soon reached its peak.
Shovel by shovel, the sand and stone were scattered into the pit, as the empty coffins were buried one by one.
Apart from a few of the black-clad people moving the shovels, the rest just stood silently, with no gunshots or music.
The Secret Keepers didn't need these extraneous things, they understood well what death meant.
What they feared was that death didn't put an end to everything.
As usual, the coffins were empty, because most of the Secret Keepers were highly polluted, their bodies destroyed long ago.
The clothing inside the tombs could not have too much contact, even grave robbers knew there was nothing in the Secret Keeper's burial grounds.
"Maybe soon, I will be buried here too..."
Watching the sand pour into the deep pit, Xia Qin in the crowd was slightly dazed.
She saw that on the other hilltops, many tombstones had already been erected.
It seemed that before long, the Administration Bureau would have to find a new hill.
"Salute."
The presiding officer's voice interrupted Xia Qin's thoughts.
The uniform salute concluded the ceremony.
No eulogy? For Polluters, words are a type of curse.
Past experiences showed that the heartfelt eulogies of Polluters, when accumulated, became pollution themselves - highly lethal pollution.
"Farewell ..."
"Brother, let's have a drink together in the next life."
Rules were the rules, and people were the people. The Secret Keepers softly offered their wishes.
And among all the "wishes", the most common was still ...
"... I will remember you."
Information itself is a form of pollution, remembering the lives of comrades was probably the only thing they, as Polluters, could do.
"I will remember you, Xiao Min, Xie Wancheng, Ah Long, Min Te'an ..."
Among the thirteen coffins, four belonged to the Zion District's Third Team.
In a team of ten members, two had "retired" after this incident. Xia Qin, the current Captain, only had two soldiers left under her command.
Xia Qin, the former Deputy Captain, was promoted. She had just received an urgent notification.
With the original Captain killed in action and the other teams mostly vacant, there was no Captain level available for a transfer.
Most of the other teams were in similar situations. The seventh team was disbanded, and its members were reallocated to other teams.
Originally a relatively inexperienced Deputy Captain, her direct promotion to Captain indicated that the Administration Bureau was severely short-staffed, and the official combat power of the ancient city had fallen once more.
"These times of turmoil ..."
Watching the buried coffins, Xia Qin naturally thought of the ZZZ-level pollution incident half a month ago, the night when her third team had almost been wiped out ...
In the white jade arena, there were cheerful Sacred Beasts on the presidential stage, a variety of monsters, demons, and ghosts in the spectators' seats, and pathetic humans as the main performers.
Two Secret Keepers were engaged in a brutal fight, with firearms and swords creating wounds and plagues.
The older one covered his wounded chest, having been driven into a corner by his younger apprentice.
The rules of the Secret Realm were simple and crude, the first being a one-on-one fight – the winner lives, the loser dies.
The chosen master and apprentice fought each other for a chance to survive.
"Great Mother Tree, I, Rusty Axe Yueyun, pledge to offer ten years of my life in exchange for power ..."
But how could the weak accept death so easily? He prayed to the Mother Tree and activated the second rule - exchanging life for power.
The aged Secret Keeper became even older, but he gained a surge of strength.
The situation was reversed, but how could the original winner accept it...
"I can also offer a sacrifice. I am younger ..."
In the end, both sides constantly sacrificed their lives - the old man died, becoming part of the Mother Tree's Holy Image and an "example" of the Lord of the Secret Realm's truth.
The winner lost most of his life and became the new old man... Among the thirteen sacrificed, two had just left the Secret Realm and died of old age.
In desperate straits, everyone waited for death, helplessly awaiting the expansion of the disaster.
In reality, the outcome had been predetermined from the start. The three teams of Secret Keepers, with their highest at the fourth-tier, were no match for a ninth-order Quasi-God.
One familiar figure after another was forced to engage in a "life-link" with their closest companions, before encountering the end of their lives or society.
Until the frail young man arrived.
Smiling, he uttered the words that no one else dared say.
"The one I want to challenge is you... Yes, you, the big, silly-looking cat. A Quasi-God? Ha, perfect."
The result? It went beyond everyone's expectations as soon as he spoke.
"I'll exchange all my life for power. Since you say the Mother Goddess is loving and looks upon all her children equally, she shouldn't let the weak have no chance of victory. Take all my life away and let me see if your love is real ..."
Suddenly, the figures that appeared in front of her interrupted Xia Qin's reminiscing.
They were a group of elderly people, shuffling their steps as they climbed the hill while the other Secret Keepers descended in silence.
The two groups passed each other without any interaction, despite being colleagues and comrades not long ago.
"There are only seven of them ..."
These were the former young people, who had aged rapidly in the Secret Realm and were the "victors." They, too, had just completed the early retirement procedure.