306: Chapter 306 Everyone retreated to the innermost part

The foul, reeking stench became increasingly pungent.

Su Qingxue's eyes widened to their absolute limit, and she lunged forward recklessly. Her mind was in complete chaos; she wanted to save Xu Zhixia.

The very instant her fingertips brushed against Xu Zhixia's collar...

That transparent interface of hers, usually used for refreshing supplies and visible only to herself, suddenly fractured into countless cracks.

The cracks rapidly expanded, forming a distorted vortex that was invisible to others yet visible to her.

Su Qingxue had no idea what this was; she only knew that she absolutely could not let Xu Zhixia die here.

Her fingers clenched abruptly, and she couldn't tell whether that vortex took the initiative to envelop Xu Zhixia, or if Su Qingxue had pulled Xu Zhixia into it.

Xu Zhixia vanished entirely out of thin air.

The Strange Bird's pair of claws violently scratched at empty air.

Due to its momentum, its massive body was completely unable to stop.

Bam!

The Strange Bird slammed solidly onto the ground.

The tremendous impact carried it plowing forward all the way, producing a continuous series of scraping sounds.

It crashed directly into the Karst Cave.

"Holy shit!"

Clutching his head, Yang Ningcong shrank tightly behind the pile of supplies, his eyes widening to the point where they almost popped out of his sockets. "Where is Xu Zhixia?"

Zhou Kai was also dumbfounded, the torch in his hand tilting to one side and almost setting his trouser legs on fire.

He rubbed his eyes fiercely, completely unable to believe what he was seeing.

Su Qingxue herself was even more rooted to the spot in a daze.

She stared blankly at her empty hands, her heartbeat so fast it almost seemed like it would shatter her chest cavity.

She could see where Xu Zhixia was, and she could also feel it.

Xu Zhixia was in an extremely quiet space.

There was no extraneous noise whatsoever in that space, only the steady sound of Xu Zhixia's heartbeat, suspended quietly there just like the bottled water and rice she usually refreshed.

How could this be possible? Her ability could not only retrieve items, but also store living people inside?

Before Su Qingxue could figure out the mechanism behind it, the Strange Bird inside the Karst Cave had already steadied its posture once more.

Although the interior space of the Karst Cave was not small, to a Strange Bird with a wingspan of several meters, it was simply like an iron cage.

Flapping its massive wings, it crashed against the stone wall, producing dull, muffled sounds.

Dust flew into the air, and the bonfire was scattered by those wings, sending sparks splashing everywhere.

"Holy shit, save me..." Yang Ningcong let out a miserable scream, scrambling and rolling as he crawled into the deepest rock crevice, his hands tightly clutching his head.

This rich second-generation heir didn't even have the courage to take a glance now.

Zhou Kai was still clutching that unburned torch in his hand.

He gritted his teeth and wanted to charge forward, but the Strange Bird's wildly flapping wings carried terrifying force, whipping up things on the ground and smashing them around haphazardly, making it impossible to get close.

At this moment, Lin Fan finally stepped onto the Karst Cave platform.

Having sprinted for several kilometers, his breathing remained steady.

He stopped right there.

In the sky, there were still those densely packed Strange Birds circling around.

Two of them had already folded their wings, locked onto the light at the Karst Cave entrance, and were preparing to rush in following the first one.

Lin Fan narrowed his eyes. One had already entered the cave, and if two more went in, the space inside would definitely be thoroughly shredded.

With Su Qingxue and the others inside, probably no one would survive.

Without hesitation, as the two Strange Birds were diving toward the cave entrance with wingspans nearly blocking out the moonlight,

Lin Fan picked up his dagger and intercepted them with a horizontal slash.

The two beasts avoided Lin Fan's attack, and Lin Fan half-turned his body and slid into the Karst Cave entrance.

Those two did not follow him in. Seeing that there were many people inside and it was an unfamiliar territory, the beasts circled outside once and screeched as they gained altitude.

Inside the cave, complete chaos reigned.

That pair of giant wings couldn't be spread at all; it could only keep its wings half-folded and run across the ground using its pair of claws.

It ran straight toward Song Ya.

Song Ya slumped against the stone wall, her torch having long since fallen who knows where.

The torn wound on her arm was still oozing blood, and the reeking stench was particularly piercing in the enclosed space.

The Strange Bird lunged straight over following the scent of blood, but it couldn't run fast.

The terrain crippled its explosive power; every time it flapped its wings, it either struck the supplies or slammed against the rock wall.

In Lin Fan's Triple Enhancement vision, this thing's movement trajectory was no different from slow motion.

Lin Fan cut in from the side, extended his right hand, and directly clasped his five fingers around the beast's neck.

Lin Fan violently yanked his wrist back.

"Gah!"

The Strange Bird's momentum was abruptly cut short, and its entire body was yanked backward.

Momentum caused that pair of sharp claws to kick forward fiercely, the tips grazing past the tip of Song Ya's nose.

Song Ya curled herself into a ball, while Lin Fan did not give the beast half a second to catch its breath.

Engaging his waist and abdomen to drive his entire arm, he hoisted the tens-of-kilograms-heavy Strange Bird up from mid-air and hurled it straight down.

Bam!

Its spine slammed against the rough ground.

The impact stunned the beast for a split second.

Lin Fan followed up with his right foot, the sole of his military boot grinding directly onto the center of the beast's sternum.

As Lin Fan exerted force, the beast let out a shrill screech, its sharp claws frantically striking at Lin Fan's calves.

Lin Fan lowered his head and glanced down.

Half a meter away from his feet, the firewood chopper that Su Qingxue had refreshed lay there.

Lin Fan bent down, picked up the firewood chopper with his left hand, and brought it down from top to bottom.

With a loud thud,

the beast's head and body separated.

A column of dark red blood gushed out from the severed neck, splashing nearly two meters away.

"Ah ah...!"

Yang Ningcong's miserable scream was even louder than the Strange Bird's before its death.

Curled up behind the pile of supplies with his hands clutching his head, his face was smeared with a large patch of warm, dark blood.

Those foul-smelling fluids trickled down the bridge of his nose and flowed into his mouth.

Yang Ningcong began to dry heave on the spot, while the Strange Bird's body was still twitching on the stone slab.

Its two hind legs kicked wildly in spasms, its sharp claws scraping harsh, grating sounds against the ground.

Its wings also flapped irregularly, each stroke splashing up a pool of dark blood.

With a kick, Lin Fan sent the headless corpse flying toward the cave entrance.

The tens of kilograms of dead flesh slid several meters across the stone slab, leaving a long trail of blood. It stopped at the edge, rubbed twice, and then fell off the platform.

Before everyone could react, a dense sound of flapping wings came from outside the cave.

All those Strange Birds circling above the cliff face charged down.

Lin Fan had originally thought that killing one would have a deterrent effect, and that predators seeing their own kind slaughtered would instinctively react by retreating.

But these beasts advanced instead of retreating.

The death of their peer not only failed to scare them off, but instead seemed to trigger a desire for revenge.

One after another, they folded their wings and dived toward the Karst Cave entrance.

Their sharp screeches overlapped together, and the entire sky above the cliff face was filled with dark shadows.

"Fall back completely to the innermost part!" Lin Fan roared without turning his head. "Zhou Kai, bring the people into the compartment! Nobody come out!"