The Shelter Game: Me, Starting with a Tenfold Drop Rate

Benjamin fought to his feet and stumbled over to Nick\'s side. "Wake up! Wake up!" he urged, gently patting Nick\'s face. After a moment, Nick finally furrowed his brow and slowly opened his eyes.

"Where are we? Are we in the underground area of the Desolate Canyon?" The first thing Nick did upon regaining consciousness was to inquire about their surroundings.

Benjamin, of course, had no definite answer, but he believed they must indeed be in the underground area of the Desolate Canyon. After all, the last thing he remembered before losing consciousness was the ground of the Desolate Canyon collapsing beneath them.

"We should be in the underground area of the Desolate Canyon, but I can\'t say for sure exactly where we are," Benjamin replied, glancing around with a hint of helplessness.

At that moment, Nick finally managed to struggle to his feet. "We can\'t stay here. We need to find a way to reunite with the others," he said in a weak voice.

Although Nick and Benjamin were roughly equal in strength, Nick had suffered severe injuries from Elder Lawrence during the earlier battle. He was in a very weakened state now.

"You\'re right; we do need to find the others. But where should we look for them?" Benjamin replied with a hint of helplessness.

"Let\'s move along the lake! We should be able to find a river eventually. Perhaps our companions are downstream by the river," Nick suggested. Despite his weakness, his intellect remained unaffected.

He quickly deduced the direction of the river. In truth, Benjamin had already figured it out as well. After all, rivers typically flow away from waterfalls.

The two of them continued to make their way along the lake and river. After about half an hour of walking, they suddenly stopped in front of a stone. On the stone was a very intricate symbol.

Nick felt a sense of familiarity with the symbol. "I feel like I\'ve seen this symbol before, but I can\'t quite remember where."

Benjamin replied coldly, "That symbol belongs to the Night Blades. We need to be extra cautious from here on out. We have entered the territory of the Night Blades."

Benjamin\'s words made Nick a bit anxious. "What if Elder Lawrence is not far from here? If we run into him, we wouldn\'t stand a chance against him," Nick said with a hint of worry.

Benjamin forced a bitter smile and replied, "If we really encounter him, we would just be waiting for death. His strength far exceeds ours. But I think my luck is holding out; we probably won\'t run into him."

After saying that, Benjamin quickly led Nick forward. Although they encountered several Night Blades insignias along the way, they didn\'t come across any members of the Night Blades. It seemed that they were in an unimportant area within the Night Blades\' territory.

After about half a day\'s journey, the two finally found signs of human activity. They saw a small dock next to a river, and there were even ropes tied to a boat at the dock.

"Maybe someone from the Night Blades will show up at this dock. We can set up an ambush around here and wait for others to appear. If it\'s a member of the Night Blades, we can rush in and subdue him," Benjamin quickly formulated a plan.

Nick didn\'t voice any objections; he felt that opposing it would be pointless anyway.

The two quickly took cover beneath the dock. After patiently waiting for a while, two individuals approached the dock, chatting and laughing. It was clear from their attire that they were members of the Night Blades.

"I wonder when Elder Lawrence will be back. He\'s left all these boring tasks for us subordinates, while he\'s off who knows where," one of them complained.

"Enough with the whining! Complaining won\'t make the work disappear! Let\'s just get the water plants out of the river as quickly as we can. Once we finish with this, we can hurry back to Shadow City. I haven\'t been back in over half a month; I wonder if anything has changed there," the other replied.

The two Night Blades members were clearly discussing the task assigned to them by Elder Lawrence. After listening for a bit longer, Benjamin felt that they weren\'t revealing any other important information, so he shot Nick a meaningful glance.

With that, Benjamin and Nick charged out from the shadows. The two Night Blades members, caught completely off guard, were quickly defeated by Benjamin.

"Who are you? Why are you attacking us here? Do you have any idea who we are?!" the defeated Night Blades members yelled, still arrogantly defiant despite their defeat.

The two felt that they were in the Night Blades\' territory, so they had no reason to fear anyone.

"I know exactly who you are; you\'re just two lowly lackeys of the Night Blades," Benjamin said coldly to the two.

Upon hearing this, the expressions on their faces shifted dramatically.

"Since you know our identities, you should let us go. If you release us now, we won\'t hold it against you," one of the Night Blades members insisted, still trying to threaten Nick and Benjamin.

After hearing this, Benjamin stepped closer to one of them and delivered a hard kick. "Maybe you didn\'t quite understand what I just said. Let me make it clear: you better listen to me, or things are going to get ugly for you."

Though Benjamin often gave off an impression of being quiet and indifferent, he was actually well-versed in interrogation as the manager of Ocean Group\'s security department. He knew that he had to apply immense pressure to force them to divulge all the information he needed.

The Night Blades member who had just been kicked turned pale, beads of cold sweat forming on his forehead.

"It seems you\'re finally starting to calm down. Now we can have a proper conversation," Benjamin said, stepping within a foot of the two.

"I know you are members of the Night Blades. So you need to tell me your specific identities, and I also want to know why you are here," Benjamin stated, then waited for the two Night Blades members to respond.

The two members hesitated slightly, but after catching a glimpse of Benjamin\'s icy glare, they ultimately decided to answer all his questions.

"We\'re just members of the 12th squad under Elder Lawrence. We are here to remove all the water plants from the river," one of them explained.

Upon hearing their response, Benjamin nodded and continued questioning. "Why do you need to remove all the water plants from the river? Isn\'t it normal for a river to have water plants?"

"The water plants in the river are actually toxic. Moreover, once we remove them, we can use these plants to feed some monsters," the other member replied.

Benjamin and Nick were taken aback by the revelation that the Night Blades were using such a method to nurture poisonous monsters. Benjamin\'s mind raced further, connecting the dots to Elder Lawrence\'s combat style. Perhaps the monsters summoned by Elder Lawrence were all creatures he had bred.

"What kinds of monsters are you feeding with the water plants? Speak up quickly," Benjamin demanded.

Upon hearing this question, the expressions on the faces of the two Night Blades members turned to confusion.

"We really don\'t know what kind of monsters we\'re feeding. The information about those monsters is classified. Only members who are very close to Elder Lawrence have the right to know," one of the Night Blades members replied.

Benjamin and Nick actually found this response somewhat agreeable. After all, Elder Lawrence appeared to be a very cautious person, and it made sense that he wouldn\'t share information about the monsters he bred with low-ranking members of the Night Blades.

Exchanging glances, Benjamin and Nick then posed another crucial question. "You say you\'re members of the 12th squad under Elder Lawrence. How many subordinates does he actually have? What is the extent of his influence?"

"Elder Lawrence has at least 20 Night Blades squads under his command, and his sphere of influence actually spans the entire Desolate Canyon. Only a few primitive tribes within the Desolate Canyon do not submit to Elder Lawrence. However, those tribes do not conflict with us, as they are aware of our strength. The core of Elder Lawrence\'s influence is Shadow City.

Shadow City is the most important city surrounding the Desolate Canyon. It\'s just that people like you are unaware of its existence," the Night Blades member explained.

The mention of Shadow City caught Benjamin\'s attention. While he had never heard of it before, Nick recalled coming across the name in the Angel Guild\'s database.

Nick lowered his voice and said to Benjamin, "Our Angel Guild\'s database does mention Shadow City. We had previously tried to locate Shadow City but never found any relevant clues.

Perhaps we can use this opportunity to successfully pinpoint the location of Shadow City. If we can rendezvous with others, we might be able to completely dismantle the Night Blades\' influence in the Desolate Canyon."