145 Shattered
◎Qi Qiuxue lost consciousness◎
The next day.
Qi Qiuxue and Li Yiqing woke up in the morning light.
Probably because Liu Ge and others came in the middle of the night, the thin blankets they covered themselves with were replaced with thick woolen blankets, which were large and warm, and had excellent thermal insulation effect.
Thanks to the warm blanket and Li Yiqing's embrace, Qi Qiuxue had a rare good sleep tonight. When she left the training ground and headed upstairs, everyone had already gotten up.
Su Wen saw the two people coming over and spoke to them, "We're almost out of food. We only have enough for breakfast at best."
"Maybe we should go out again," she said.
"Have you asked for your mother's consent?" Li Yiqing asked.
"I've already said hello."
Qi Qiuxue looked at her: "How is Mom today?"
"She's still not feeling well," Su Wen sighed. "She has a high fever and is even worse than yesterday. I've watched her take medicine. I hope her fever goes away soon."
"What about the injured area? Have you applied medicine?"
"Yes, she had already given herself medicine before I got there."
"Yeah." Qi Qiuxue nodded in response and said nothing more.
Su Wen turned and left: "Then I'll go cook."
Breakfast was served on the table in a short while.
Because there were not many ingredients left, today's breakfast was very simple. After Su Wen finished cooking, he was not idle. He took the initiative to bring a portion to his mother, and then returned to the restaurant to start eating.
After dinner, Qi Qiuxue thought back to yesterday's events. "Sister Liu, Ah Wen, you don't have to go today. Stay and take care of Mom. The three of us can handle gathering the ingredients."
"How can that be?" Su Wen retorted subconsciously. "What if you run into those monsters again? It's much more dangerous out there than in the facility!"
"It's okay, we'll be careful."
"But..." Su Wen seemed to want to say something else.
Liu Ge, who was standing by, understood Qi Qiuxue's intention and interrupted Su Wen, "Axue, it's because of the masked man, right? Unless it's a very critical moment, we shouldn't let them find out our true identity so easily."
"If it truly possesses the ability to replicate, we shouldn't expose our weapons right now. Even if we follow it, they won't be of much use. We'd better stay and look after Mom."
Qi Qiuxue nodded in response: "That's right."
She picked up the bone knife on the table and stood up with Li Yiqing and Wu Shanyue. Before leaving, she seemed worried and reminded them, "Mom's health is not good. I hope you can stay by her side until we return."
This was actually her second intention.
The masked man's identity was too special. Even though Qi Qiuxue had never seen his face clearly, his figure and behavior were very different from those monsters, and his fighting strength was far superior to theirs.
Qi Qiuxue always had doubts about its identity, and at certain moments, she would even unconsciously associate it with her mother.
——She needs someone to stay behind to monitor her, and Liu Ge and Su Wen are undoubtedly the best candidates.
-
The temperature is slightly lower today.
The three of them walked together into the forest to pick some mushrooms and wild fruits, and also hunted a few rabbits.
They always obeyed their mother's words and only dared to move around near the facilities, not going too far. The forest was filled with thick fog in the early morning, and visibility was very low. The three of them walked while paying attention to the surrounding environment, guarding against danger coming again.
But soon, a faint sound was heard from the thick fog in the distance.
It was the sound of footsteps, very chaotic footsteps, as if a large number of monsters were coming from all directions and were rapidly gathering towards them.
"Be careful!" Li Yiqing said in a deep voice, and took the lead in raising the crossbow in his hand and shooting several arrows in the direction where the sound came from.
The sharp arrows cut through the air and flew into the thick fog, and then reflected different sounds. Some pierced into the tree trunks, some fell into the grass, and a few sporadic muffled sounds probably happened to hit the monsters.
The footsteps paused just as they were about to penetrate the thick fog.
Qi Qiuxue frowned, and the three of them clenched their weapons, standing back to back, trying their best to leave no blind spots in their vision. Even if the footsteps disappeared, they knew that the monsters must still be hiding in the fog, waiting for an opportunity to strike.
This stalemate lasted for about ten seconds.
Suddenly, a huge net was thrown out from the fog, instantly covering the three people in the net.
It was a net woven from iron chains, very heavy, and it smashed down on the three people, not only restricting their movements but also causing their bodies to sink uncontrollably.
Then the monsters walked out of the fog, quickly retracting the net as they approached, trying to capture Qi Qiuxue and the others in this way. Qi Qiuxue naturally refused to obey, and quickly turned the bone knife in her hand, trying to cut the iron net that was pressing on them.
This was just an instinctive reaction. Compared to the hard iron net, the brittle bone knife did not have the ability to cut it easily, but for some reason, Qi Qiuxue actually did it.
She held the small bone knife in her hand, cutting iron like mud. In a moment, she broke through the iron net and the three of them escaped successfully.
Qi Qiuxue didn't have time to think about the reason behind this. She dodged the monster's attack by moving sideways and stabbed its body with the bone knife. Li Yiqing and Wu Shanyue also joined the battle, trying to kill all the attacking monsters with all their might.
With long-term practice and the support of weapons, even though they were few in number, they gradually gained the upper hand.
Perhaps he realized that something was wrong.
The monsters stopped attacking and continued to communicate simply in a language they couldn't understand. Then they retreated back into the fog, and the sound of footsteps gradually faded away.
“…”
Qi Qiuxue lowered her eyes and stared silently at the bone knife in her hand.
She never knew that her bone knife was so sharp. In the past, she cherished and protected it, fearing that she would break the weapon made by her mother, and she had never made such an attempt.
Until today——
Can a small bone knife really achieve this?
Li Yiqing and Wu Shanyue, who were not far away, put away their weapons and turned back.
Qi Qiuxue looked up at the two of them and opened her lips to speak, but before she could make a sound, a rope appeared out of thin air in the fog, wrapped around her neck with precision, and tightened infinitely.
In an instant, she was dragged into the fog by the thing at the other end of the rope. In a blink of an eye, she could no longer see the figures of Li Yiqing and Wu Shanyue. She could only hear their shouts getting farther and farther away.
Qi Qiuxue was dragged rapidly by the thing, her body rubbing against the uneven ground, and being repeatedly tortured by the large and small stones and thorns on the ground, leaving wounds of varying degrees all over her body.
She held the rope behind her neck with her backhand, raised the bone knife in her right hand, and tried several times to cut the rope around her neck, but it was extremely difficult to cut the rope tightly wrapped around her neck while being dragged so quickly and in such a bumpy state.
It was not until the fourth attempt that Qi Qiuxue finally succeeded.
She rolled forward several times under the influence of inertia before finally stopping. She seemed to be dragged very far, so far that she could no longer hear the voices of Li Yiqing and Wu Shanyue. Qi Qiuxue struggled to stand up and looked at the thing at the other end of the rope.
——It was that masked man again. He appeared in front of Qi Qiuxue again, but this time Qi Qiuxue was alone and helpless.
“…”
Qi Qiuxue covered her neck, which was red and bleeding from being strangled, with one hand, and held the bone knife high in front of her with the other hand, taking a defensive stance.
She stared at the masked man's face, trying to figure out his purpose: "Who are you and what do you want to do?!"
The masked man said nothing, but just snapped his fingers lightly, and then a weapon exactly the same as the bone knife in Qi Qiuxue's hand appeared in his palm.
It rushed up in an instant and launched a surprise attack on Qi Qiuxue. Its speed, strength, and methods were far superior to those monsters. Even though Qi Qiuxue had practiced many times last night, she was still no match for it and was completely unable to predict any of its moves.
It seemed as if it didn't have its own usual body movements and attack modes. If Li Yiqing had hundreds of combat measures, then the masked man had thousands, or even tens of thousands. Qi Qiuxue was beaten back step by step by it, and she didn't even have time to complete her self-defense. The masked man left wounds of varying sizes and depths on her body. Instead of killing her quickly, at this moment, the opponent's behavior seemed like he was playing with a dying prey.
"Cough." Qi Qiuxue was kicked in the chest by it, and bright red blood gushed out of her throat in an instant, but she had no time to wipe it off, and the masked man attacked her again.
This time, the target was her heart.
Qi Qiuxue used all her strength to block the masked man's attack as quickly as possible. The two identical bone knives collided with each other, making a crisp sound.
The masked man increased the strength of his wrist under Qi Qiuxue's gaze. Qi Qiuxue obviously found that his bone knife was cracking.
The masked man retracted the bone knife in his hand the next second, but chopped at the weapon in Qi Qiuxue's hand again at an even faster speed. There was a crisp "click" sound, and the bone knife in Qi Qiuxue's hand broke into several pieces under the huge impact.
“…”
Qi Qiuxue widened her eyes, and a great sense of crisis was rising in her heart.
For unknown reasons, the masked man changed the weapon in his hand. This time, what appeared in his palm was neither a crossbow nor a gun.
But it’s the chain blade, Liu Ge’s chain blade!
How could this happen? It had clearly never seen Liu Ge's weapon before, so why...
Qi Qiuxue didn't have time to think about it. The masked man quickly moved the chain blade in his hand down and stabbed it into Qi Qiuxue's abdomen.
A fishy-sweet smell quickly spread from her throat. Qi Qiuxue lowered her eyes and spat out large mouthfuls of blood. She could no longer control her body and fell backwards to the ground.
She tried to look up at the masked man's face on the cold ground. Even though she couldn't see his expression or appearance clearly, just like yesterday, she could still read a hint of sarcasm in his demeanor.
In intense resentment and anger, Qi Qiuxue lost consciousness.
【Author’s words】
Here I come! I'm still a thousand words away from the second update I promised, I'll make up for it tomorrow
Thank you all for your overlord tickets and nutrient solution, thank you for leaving comments and reading, muahmuhmmmmm~
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