"Huh?" Shino was taken aback. "Could it be that the reason we're lost is because this forest misleads us visually? Then why weren't the previous two groups of Hunters affected?"

"Perhaps someone among them has the ability to break through such misdirection," Sun Hang continued along his line of thought—he couldn't possibly tell the two that the real culprits causing them to go in circles in the forest were actually three damn monkeys, not the forest itself, right?

Shino and the female Hunter didn't ask further questions. They obediently closed their eyes and grasped the knots on the rope, while Sun Hang wrapped the front end of the rope around his hand, walking in the direction they had just chosen.

He not only closed his own eyes but also plugged his ears, walking silently... As for detecting obstacles, he relied on fungal threads extending forward like tendrils.

To ensure he kept walking in a straight line, even when trees blocked the way ahead, Sun Hang never sidestepped. Instead, he chopped the trunks at the root and stepped over the levelled stumps.

...

Over ten minutes later, Sun Hang suddenly felt a refreshing clarity coming towards him. He opened his eyes and surprisingly found himself out of the forest, standing in a valley strewn with rocks.

Sun Hang looked back, and that eerie forest was just less than ten meters behind them.

"We've walked out; you can open your eyes now," Sun Hang said.

"Phew..." Shino let out a deep breath and said, "I could actually feel it just now—an ever-present fear in the depths of my heart suddenly disappeared, so I guessed we might have walked out of the forest... But since you weren't speaking, I didn't dare to make a sound either."

"Even if you had spoken, I wouldn't have heard because I plugged my ears too—to avoid any external interference," Sun Hang said as he lowered the fisherman he was carrying, beckoning to the female Hunter. "Could you wake this guy up? I don't want to carry someone weighing nearly two hundred pounds along with over two hundred pounds of equipment for the remaining journey."

"This should be the quarry on the island." Shino took two steps forward, examining the valley. "The stone needed for the research institute's construction was all quarried here. As long as we pass through this valley, we can see the ruins of the research institute."

"The fourth batch of Hunters didn't even make it here back then, did they?" Sun Hang asked.

"Hmm... The mission reports didn't mention it," Shino nodded, stepping forward to pick up a plastic bottle that was scattered among the rocks.

The plastic bottle was quite new, with a small amount of untouched pure water inside and a Federation navy emblem on the outside.

"It was left by the first two batches," Shino said as he gazed towards the valley's exit. "They indeed came out of the forest and passed through this valley."

Sun Hang bent over to pick up a spent signal flare and said, "This should be the first green signal flare we saw on the beach. At that time, they had just come out of the forest."

"Immediately afterward, we were attacked by the Yamata Orochi," Shino whispered. "I even suspect that the Yamata Orochi was attracted by this signal flare..."

"Would the Yamata Orochi be attracted by a signal flare?" Sun Hang asked.

He didn't know much about this unexpected weird creature.

"Not sure, there's no record of that," Shino shook his head. "But it's too coincidental—this signal flare seemed to act as an attack signal for the Yamata Orochi... If the Yamata Orochi has been near the Nameless Island the whole time, then why didn't it attack when the warship approached, when we landed on the island, or when we started setting up camp, and only suddenly retaliated after this signal flare was launched?"

"Hiss... The way you put it, those Angsa people are indeed suspicious!" The awakened fisherman chimed in, "Damn, this forest is really bizarre. Thinking back to my state just now, I feel a bit afraid myself."

"Does your neck still hurt? I hoped you could withstand a beating, fearing I wouldn't be able to knock you out with a light tap," Sun Hang asked.

"It's alright, it's alright," the fisherman moved his neck and said, "Don't forget my recovery capability is quite strong... Actually, at that time, I was hoping you could knock me out, but unfortunately, I seemed to have lost the ability to form words then, being completely consumed by anger."

"Glad you're okay. Check the equipment, and let's keep moving," Sun Hang said. "We spent so much time in the forest, the second batch of Hunters should have already entered the research institute ruins."

...

The valley wasn't large; the four of them reached its exit in less than twenty minutes. In front of them was a sunken basin, about three kilometers in diameter, with the ruins of buildings covering at least two-thirds of the basin's area.

"Wow, this research institute is really huge!" the fisherman marveled. "The one in our Siberian Autonomous Region isn't even as big as a corner of this place."

Although Sun Hang had looked at old photos of the Nameless Island Research Institute, those photos did not include such bird's-eye panoramic views.

The structural diagram of the research institute indeed indicated its total land area, but merely looking at those line sketches with numbers compared to seeing the real thing offered quite a significant sensory discrepancy.

It would not be an exaggeration to call this research institute a small town.

"When they originally designed the Nameless Island Research Institute, it was intended to build a city," Shino said. "Both the Xiazhou Federation and the Siberian Federation believed that the research of anomalies was something that could take decades or even longer, and people working in the institute might spend their entire lives, or even generations, living on the island. Hence, the supporting facilities here were designed and built to city standards, intended to accommodate a population of fifty thousand to eighty thousand people."

Shino caught his breath and continued, "The first phase of the research institute project began construction in the year 4599 on the Huang calendar, completed in 4602, and started operation the same year. In February of the following year, the second and third phase expansion projects began simultaneously... Unfortunately, in December of that year, an accident occurred that led to the abandonment of the entire research institute, and the Nameless Island records were completely sealed."

"December of the following year, that's the year 4603 on the Huang calendar, right?" Sun Hang suddenly remembered the "Initial Anomaly Direct Contact Experiment Report" he had seen in his dream; the year at the beginning of the document was also the year 4603 on the Huang calendar.

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