305: Chapter 305 Only... Not her, Xu Zhixia herself.

Lin Fan lowered his head and glanced. Regardless of whether they could block it or not, Chen Jian was currently the only breakthrough point to pry open the secrets of this island, and he had to bring this bastard back alive.

Lin Fan exerted force with the soles of his feet just as he prepared to kick and snap Chen Jian's spine, ready to pack him up and take him away.

A dense rustling sound suddenly erupted from the edge of the woods.

The mutant macaques that hadn't chased out earlier had somehow sneaked up again at this moment.

In the darkness, dozens of crimson eyes flickered among the branches.

Without a shred of monkey screaming, their movements were neat. Leveraging their front paws against the tree trunks, they smashed toward Lin Fan.

Cover Chen Jian?

This fucking made no sense at all.

What kind of thing was Chen Jian? If he was just a bottom-tier errand runner, why would these beasts violate territorial rules and run out to save him?

Lin Fan had no mind to fight to the death with a bunch of monkeys right now.

The Strange Bird in the sky was heading toward the Karst Cave, and he had to rush back immediately.

But before he could turn around, the surrounding temperature suddenly dropped.

A large mass of white fog surged out from the ground without any warning.

Visibility dropped to zero in a second.

This fog was not right.

This was definitely not some natural phenomenon; it looked more like a blinding trick thrown out by some scheming bastard.

[Warning: Fatal threat is approaching, roll to the front right immediately!]

A line of blood-red bold characters popped up directly on his retina.

Lin Fan didn't even move his brain; his body reacted instinctively first.

With a stomp of his soles on the sandy ground, his entire body dashed fiercely toward the front right, hugging the ground.

"Swish! Swish! Swish!"

Just a split second after he left his original spot.

Three extremely sharp sounds of breaking air flew past right against his scalp.

What the fuck, were these cold weapons?

Lin Fan rolled and landed, taking the momentum to kneel steadily on one knee. With his right hand reverse-gripping his dagger, he stared fixedly at the white-out surroundings.

The surroundings were dead silent.

Chen Jian, who had been stubbornly laughing wildly just moments ago, didn't even have the sound of breathing left.

The movement of the monkey troop had also retreated completely.

In less than a minute.

As the sea breeze blew, the white fog was sucked away like by a range hood, scattering so thoroughly not even a trace was left.

The beach was empty.

Right where Lin Fan had stepped on Chen Jian earlier, only a pool of dark red blood and a few tufts of grayish-black short hair remained.

Chen Jian was gone.

Under the cover of the monkey troop, someone had forcefully fished the person away.

There wasn't just a group of stitched monsters on this island, there were also people.

And they were ruthless characters capable of making tools and even domesticating monsters.

Lin Fan crossed back in a few steps to the position he was standing at earlier.

Three pitch-black things were stabbed straight into the tree trunk.

The barbed arrowheads were deeply pierced into the wood. This terrifying penetrative power and precision were simply not something ordinary survivors could pull off.

A layer of cold sweat broke out on Lin Fan's back.

If the system hadn't forcibly sounded the alarm just now, these three arrows would already have opened holes in his head and heart.

The controller behind this island not only didn't want Chen Jian to die, but was even more afraid that Chen Jian would leak the trump card of the "lab rat".

Lin Fan needed to use force just to pull these things out; they were definitely not manufactured using materials from the island.

What kind of place was this island anyway?

There were people, then what other people were there? How many more people were there?

The Strange Bird's cries pierced the sky, and Lin Fan suddenly snapped back to his senses. There was no time for reasoning now.

That flock of large black birds in the sky had already rushed toward the Karst Cave. Chen Jian was lost so be it, but the chips in Su Qingxue's belly must absolutely not have anything go wrong.

Lin Fan tucked the crossbow bolt into his belt, turned around, and his Triple Enhancement legs burst forth fiercely.

The night wind whistled past his ears.

...

At the same time, on the outer perimeter of the Karst Cave.

The oppressive dark shadows in the sky had already crossed the highest point of the cliff and started pressing downward.

The piercing shrieks of the Strange Bird, mixed with the sea breeze, made one's scalp tingle.

Inside the Karst Cave.

The campfire flickered erratically, blown by the sea breeze.

Xu Zhixia stood at the very front, gripping tightly a wrist-thick wooden stick in her hand. The tip was wrapped with rags and coated thoroughly with sticky pine resin.

"Light the fire!" Xu Zhixia spoke.

Zhou Kai placed the other few wooden sticks over the fire pit.

With a "boom", the pine resin met the fire, directly bursting into a blinding ball of firelight.

The tongues of fire crackled as they burned.

"Song Ya, take one! Yang Ningcong, you come over and help too!" Without even turning her head, Xu Zhixia stared at the pitch-black night sky outside.

That strange screaming sound, resembling a broken gong scraping, had already pressed down overhead.

Song Ya's face was pale, and her hands shook like a sifting sieve, but she still grabbed a wooden stick and braced herself to stand by Xu Zhixia's side.

Yang Ningcong cowered behind the pile of supplies at this moment, refusing to budge even if beaten to death.

"I'm not going! Holy shit, what the fuck are those monsters anyway! If I go out, I'll definitely be feeding heads!"

Xu Zhixia couldn't be bothered to pay attention to him at all.

At this life-or-death juncture, if Yang Ningcong came out, he would probably trip them up behind the scenes just to survive.

A wave of intense, foul wind suddenly poured in from outside the cave.

Immediately after, a huge shadow covered the entire platform.

Just then, the curtain of the partition behind opened, and Su Qingxue actually walked out from inside.

With a sweep of her peripheral vision, Xu Zhixia locked her brows tightly.

"Qingxue, your stomach is inconvenient, step back inside!" Xu Zhixia's tone left no room for negotiation.

"Xu Zhixia, stop trying to order me around." Not only did Su Qingxue not step back, but she even forced forward two steps and picked up the piece of firewood that Yang Ningcong hadn't taken.

Staring at the black shadows circling outside the cave, she took a deep breath.

"One more person means one more share of combat power."

"If the defense line collapses and you all die here, I won't expect to live either."

Su Qingxue had a very clear head; she figured things out right after crying inside just now.

Lin Fan was right; no one on this lousy island recognized her title of beautiful female CEO.

If the monsters rushed in, hiding in the partition would also mean death.

Rather than being a turtle in a jar, it was better to come out and fight for it, even if it was just throwing stones from the back.

Xu Zhixia stopped talking.

She knew Su Qingxue's pride, which was deeply engraved in her bones, far too well.

Having just taken a slap, she was now stubbornly insisting on running out, purely to prove that she wasn't just a pendant that only knew how to cry.

Xu Zhixia didn't waste any more words, simply stepping horizontally to the side in silence.

The movement wasn't big, but it was just right, blocking Su Qingxue tightly with her own body.

The firelight shone on Xu Zhixia's cold face, and the red, swollen fingerprint on that half of her face was exceptionally conspicuous.

"Qingxue, if we can all breathe and see tomorrow's sun tonight." Xu Zhixia stared fixedly outside the cave, "that ledger can be settled however you like."

Su Qingxue was completely stunned.

She looked at that frail back blocking in front of her.

Just dozens of minutes ago, she had gone crazy and slapped this woman across the face, pointing at her nose and cursing her as despicable.

But now with the monsters right in their faces, Xu Zhixia instinctively protected her behind her back.

It felt as though something was stuck in Su Qingxue's throat, unable to be swallowed down or spat out.

"Caw...!"

A strange shriek instantly tore the air apart.

A huge dark shadow took the lead in diving down from the sky.

Its wingspan was a full several meters wide, and it looked like a mutant giant crow, yet it topped its head with a pair of bat-like pointed ears—a pure stitched monster.

Its speed was so fast it left afterimages, wrapped in a strong stench of corpses as it went straight for Xu Zhixia, who was at the very front.

"Fuck your uncle!" Zhou Kai roared with red eyes, swinging the torch in his hand and striking from the side.

Beasts were naturally afraid of fire, and the Strange Bird abruptly tilted its wings, dodging the open flame.

But its sharp claws, harder than steel reinforcement, scooped in mid-air, directly tearing Song Ya's coat apart with a "ripping" sound and bringing out a large string of blood droplets.

"Ah!" Song Ya screamed in pain, her legs turning soft as she fell straight down and sat on the ground.

Once a gap appeared in the defense line, more black shadows followed and pounced down.

The platform instantly turned into a chaotic mess, the torchlight tottered precariously in the fierce wind, and the defense line looked like it was about to collapse.

The leading Strange Bird abruptly made a sharp turn in mid-air, reversing its spearhead.

That pair of sharp claws hanging with torn cloth strips was wrapped in a chilling wind, pouncing straight toward Su Qingxue at the back!

Xu Zhixia's pupils shrank violently.

There was simply no time to pass it through her brain; physical instinct directly overrode reason.

She rushed over, her arms suddenly exerting force as she grabbed hold of Su Qingxue's clothes and fiercely hurled her backward!

Su Qingxue was pulled off balance, staggering back several steps and narrowly avoiding this fatal blow.

But this half-second of rescue completely sent Xu Zhixia herself into a dead end.

The sound of the wind was shrill and piercing, carrying a nauseating foul stench as it crashed down overhead!

That pair of black, cold-glinting sharp claws approached visibly to the naked eye.

Too fast!

So fast that she couldn't even make the motion of raising her hand to protect her head!

Under the extremely fatal threat, time seemed to have been pressed with a slow-motion button.

Xu Zhixia could even clearly feel the chilling wind stirred up by the Strange Bird's dive smashing fiercely against her scalp.

A bone-chilling cold rushed all the way up her spine to her crown, and her hands and feet instantly went numb.

As long as those claws landed solidly, her head would definitely be crushed on the spot like a watermelon.

"Zhixia...!"

Su Qingxue, who had just steadied herself, witnessed this scene with her own eyes, her pupils trembling.

Whatever vying for affection, whatever grievances of a wealthy socialite, in this single instant, they all fucking turned into air!

There was nothing left in her brain except bone-deep panic.

In this second when the Grim Reaper was right in her face, Xu Zhixia's gaze looked at everyone, and those strange dreams flashed through her mind.

She frequently dreamed of Lin Fan, which was why upon their first meeting on the beach, she chose without reservation to return to the Karst Cave with him.

She had also dreamed that on some future day, Lin Fan would stand here and protect everyone.

This was why she dared to bet her life that Wang Laoliu couldn't harm Lin Fan in the slightest.

She had never figured out why she would frequently dream of a man she had never met before, or why she could foresee the future like a prophet.

But she never expected that before the truth was even revealed, she would be exiting the stage early.

Because in that dream, Su Qingxue was there, Song Ya was there, and even that trash Yang Ningcong was there.

Everyone was there.

Only... without herself, Xu Zhixia...