Outpost City had indeed come under attack, yet the assailants were not Survivors from any Special Channel.

Nor were they the puppets the two women had just fought.

They were other Settlers!

Bai Cheng was taken aback; instead of having Yu Nian relay the message, she contacted Great Strength Bull inside the city directly.

With the earlier assailant already slain by Purple Iris, the signal had been restored.

In moments, Bai Cheng obtained far more detailed information.

It turned out that Survivors from a Special Channel had indeed forged intel to trick the leaders into returning to Outpost City.

Every isolated leader had been killed without exception; their corpses were gathered for some clandestine ritual.

That was all Bai Cheng presently knew.

Yet the crisis Great Strength Bull spoke of did not stem from this—though it was indirectly linked, it arose from the governance vacuum that followed.

leaders are the fixed City Lords of Outpost City; the title cannot be transferred.

Of course, if the channel's inhabitants could jointly elect a new Survivor as leader within twenty-four hours... leaving aside how rare Survivors now were—most people had chosen to become Settlers—who would dare volunteer after this incident?

Becoming leader meant being hunted by the Special Survivors of #1 channel!

If leaders far stronger than them had died, how could any newly elected leader hope to stand against the enemy?

Admittedly, there was a slim chance several Survivors might fight over the position, throwing the channel into civil strife.

Yet whichever of those two paths was taken, only one outcome awaited.

The matter could not be resolved within twenty-four hours; the outpost would inevitably collapse.

But the city's fall would not kill the tens of millions of Settlers inside; the capable would first flee to other outpost cities for refuge.

After all, the world held over ten thousand channels, and they had traversed only six or seven terrains.

Thus, even if Bai Cheng's vicinity showed no other outpost cities, the Dark Forest must hold countless ones established by other leaders.

Settlers confined to the same zone and too weak to leave would simply escape to whichever outpost still stood.

And it was precisely this influx that now threatened Bai Cheng's city.

Great Strength Bull, on his own initiative, had taken in far too many refugees.

Those refugees had secretly rallied their original channel's Survivors, staging a coup inside the city to seize control.

To become City Lord they naturally had to eliminate Bai Cheng, the de-facto leader.

Yet Great Strength Bull's intent had been good—he wished to recruit more Survivors to secure extra resources for Bai Cheng; he simply hadn't foreseen this result.

Bai Cheng did not blame him.

On the contrary, learning the enemy were merely displaced Settlers from other channels let her breathe easier.

“Just a bunch of small-fry!”

The greatest gain this time was apparently disrupting some special ritual the #1 channel Survivors had prepared.

Bai Cheng looked away, toward Purple Iris handling the cleanup in the distance.

Inside the Altar, Purple Iris flicked her blade, shaking off clinging humus.

She gazed at the shattered Altar remains; the dark-red runes still writhed like living things before dissolving into ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ threads of black smoke.

Yet the ground beneath her quivered, as if something was racing away through the ley lines.

“Looks like there are other Altars?” she muttered coldly, driving her blade into the earth to block it.

But a Ghost-blue Radiance had already seeped through the cracks into the depths.

The next moment, a hundred metres away the forest floor exploded into a deep pit, and a tangle of roots wrapped in Jade-green Crystals burst out in frantic escape.

Purple Iris's pupils contracted.

So the Altar had been a decoy.

The murdered leaders' corpses—even the giant tree puppets' humus—had all been camouflage for the energy surge beneath the ground!

Without hesitation she leapt toward the coordinates, only to brake sharply mid-air.

“Rustle—”

Every tree in the forest twisted at once, bark peeling away to reveal dense clusters of Jade-green Crystals.

The crystals pulsed like heartbeats, each throb sending ripples through space.

Purple Iris's Domain was forced back into her body by those very ripples!

Her pupils shrank; with her Domain violently suppressed she felt an unprecedented pressure.

The flickering Jade-green Crystals seemed to form a vast Array, turning the entire forest into a cage.

The air reeked of rot and blood; even the wind was frozen.

“Knew something was off,” she said coldly, spreading her left hand as ghost-blue light condensed into a translucent dagger.

At the same time she sensed a low hum from deep underground, as if some long-slumbering awareness was waking.

Far away, Bai Cheng also sensed the anomaly: “Could every terrain hold Altars built by those Special Channel Survivors?”

Uncertain of their goal, she was determined to stop them.

Seeing that even Purple Iris's King-tier strength could not shatter the crystals, Bai Cheng stamped her foot and decided to act.

She shot toward Purple Iris like an arrow, summoning her scythe as she ran.

Yet the instant she set foot on the forest's edge the ground split, countless roots coiling like pythons and forcing her to retreat.

Bai Cheng's gaze darkened; Purple Iris swept out a blade to clear her path.

But more roots erupted, as though the entire forest were targeting them.

“Purple Iris!” Bai Cheng shouted, signalling the other woman to cover her.

All these anomalies in the Dark Forest originated from the unknown Array—it had to be destroyed.

Purple Iris might be powerless, but Bai Cheng's scythe could cut anything; it would shatter the crystals with ease.

Purple Iris didn't look back; her Domain expanded into a mighty slash that severed the surrounding weird vines.

Bai Cheng seized the opening and unleashed her own charged strike.

A Black Arc flashed from the sky, countless crystals exploded, and the surging energy detonated.

The withered vines began to rot, everything around returning to normal... “Purple Iris, move—we're heading for Outpost City!”