Listening to Sun Hang, the faces of the other Hunters changed immediately.

"Indeed... it's a bit strange..." the Fisherman nodded in agreement.

"Why do I feel like Yamata Orochi is deliberately driving us into this forest?" exclaimed a Hunter who had been leaning against a tree trunk, now standing up and moving some distance away from the surrounding trees. "Hiss... I don't know why, but looking at these trees now, I suddenly feel a chill... Is it just my imagination?"

"I think there are only two possibilities. One is, as you said, that Yamata Orochi, for some unknown reason, is driving us into this forest," Sun Hang analyzed. "The other possibility is that this forest is the territory of an even more powerful entity that even Yamata Orochi can't provoke."

"A more powerful entity? Do you mean the Nameless Island itself?" asked the Fisherman.

"If Yamata Orochi was afraid of the Nameless Island, it wouldn't even approach the beach, would it?" another Hunter immediately retorted.

"Then it's the forest that's the problem," said the Fisherman.

"It shouldn't be that bad... Didn't the other group of Hunters already pass through the forest safely?" The female Hunter crossed her arms in front of her chest, rubbing the goosebumps on her arms with her hands and said uncertainly, "This... this place should be safe, right?"

"How can you be sure that signal flare was definitely fired by 'people'?" Sun Hang said softly.

The female Hunter's face immediately turned pale.

Sun Hang suddenly thought that if he were to write horror novels, he might just become a bestselling author.

"It can't be... If they encountered any mishap, they would have fired a red signal flare immediately," said another Hunter.

"When we were attacked by Yamata Orochi, we also fired a red signal flare immediately, but they didn't even respond, which already speaks volumes," Shino pondered. "I also feel something is not quite right with this situation."

"You also have to consider what kind of people they are," said the Hunter who had previously disagreed. "With the selfish nature of the Angsa, even if we were in dire straits right in front of them, they wouldn't necessarily help us, let alone turn back to save us."

"Exactly," the Fisherman chimed in. "They wish for us all to die. If you fell into a pit in front of them, they might just throw stones down at you!"

"Shino," Sun Hang looked at the Hunter of Fusang descent, "from here to the destroyer anchored at sea, how much time does it take for a drone to make a round trip?"

"Conservatively speaking... about an hour," Shino replied.

"Alright, we'll wait here for two hours," Sun Hang said, "If the drone doesn't return in two hours..."

"Then go find the other group of Hunters?"

"No, we'll skirt along the coastline to the other side of the island, chop down trees to make a canoe, and leave," Sun Hang said.

"Yamata Orochi won't let us leave so easily, will it?"

"Then we'll take it one step at a time... In my view, venturing deep into the forest is not as good as rushing into the sea to fight Yamata Orochi head-on," Sun Hang glanced at everyone. "Do any of you have objections?"

"No one objected, so I'll take it as your silent agreement," Sun Hang said.

"Ha, I might as well try and see if this thing is edible," the Fisherman drew the short knife from his waist, sliced a piece of bark, and chewed it at the corner of his mouth—his face turned extremely unpleasant the next second, and he promptly spat out the bark.

"Ptooey ptooey! This thing... it's both salty and astringent, with a stench like burning plastic going right up my nose... it's more disgusting than fermented herring!"

Sun Hang was immediately amused by him: "It's not surprising that something grown on alkali-saline soil is salty."

The other Hunters echoed with dry laughs, and soon the forest returned to silence.

Two hours is not a long time, but for this group of Hunters trapped like prisoners, every second felt tortuous.

...

Just as Sun Hang was so bored that he began pondering whether the bark rejected by the Fisherman could be used to refine salt, a green signal flare soared into the sky from afar and exploded with a booming noise.

"Another green one," a Hunter murmured, looking at the distant sky.

The other Hunters exchanged looks, with a few wanting to speak but, intimidated by Sun Hang's recent actions, ultimately remaining silent.

"The signal flare's launch position should be here," Shino took out a paper map, pointing to a spot on it—according to information collected by the fourth group of Hunters who landed on the island, the terrain of the uninhabited island had changed significantly over the past century. The original map in the Dubhe Tower archives was long outdated.

The map in Shino's hand was redrawn by the fourth group of island-landing Hunters, supplemented by photos shot by subsequent drones, and revised many times.

But even so, the entire map wasn't brand new—only the outer regions of the island were newly drawn. As for the research center ruins at the island's center, it still followed the old map.

Those Hunters hadn't ventured deep into the ruins, and no drone that flew to the island center ever returned.

Sun Hang came over to glance at the map. If Shino's indicated position was correct, that group of Hunters had already crossed the valley at the edge of the forest, near the research center ruins.

"No rush, let's keep waiting," Sun Hang found a stone to sit on, took an energy bar from his backpack, tore open the wrapper, broke it in half, and tossed one half to the Fisherman.

The Fisherman's backpack had been thrown at the campsite earlier and had already been swept out to sea by the big wave. All he had left was the short knife at his waist and a palm-sized military first-aid kit.

"Thanks, buddy," the Fisherman caught the half energy bar and threw it directly into his mouth.

Sun Hang chewed on the remaining half of the energy bar, using his tongue to lick the chocolate stuck to his teeth, and looked up at the sky where the signal flare had yet to fully dissipate... To be honest, he wasn't at all worried about supplies—with his abilities, even without food, he wouldn't starve to death.

Those Hunters who died near the forest could easily provide him with several days of calories.

Cannibalism, from a human perspective, is something one resorts to only in desperate situations, but for the tai sui within Sun Hang, such matters used to be quite common.

The mycelium could decompose those corpses into the most basic nutrients, even perfectly resolving any toxins contained within the bodies... The only reason Sun Hang was still chewing on energy bars was simply to avoid scaring this group of colleagues already on the brink of collapse.

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