The "townspeople" of Black Stone Town had abandoned their disguise and began to slaughter the survivors of the mission in the most brutal manner.

Fatty had never felt like he could run this fast.

Those stone statues... they had all come to life!

Moreover, along with the other "townspeople" who had arrived, they were lying in wait, hanging upside down from the ceiling of the building's first-floor hall, waiting for their prey to approach.

The building's effect as a safe zone had disappeared, which was why the doctor was so determined to rush out.

The sound of claws scuttling, wings flapping, and all sorts of other mixed sounds followed closely behind them. Fatty wanted to turn his head to look, but he didn't dare.

He was afraid that if he really saw those ghastly things, he would lose his instinct for survival.

Those ugly monsters were not as clumsy as they had initially appeared. They were very fast, biting at their heels like a pack of wolves.

It wasn't until they rushed into the forest and were shielded by the trees that the situation improved slightly.

"Doctor, the building's restriction on them has disappeared," Fatty said, his tongue thick, his face as pale as if it had been painted.

Jiang Cheng was looking for a path ahead, pushing aside the dense bushes. His expression was strange, and his eyes were even stranger, as if he was struggling with something, which made Fatty feel very uneasy.

There were constant rustling sounds and the snapping of branches all around them. Those monsters had also rushed into the forest with them.

"Doctor," Fatty said, hurrying along the path that Jiang Cheng had cleared. He paused, his slightly open mouth stopping again, as if he wanted to say something but didn't know how to start.

"Ask whatever you want," Jiang Cheng said without turning his head. "It might be too late otherwise."

Hearing this, Fatty no longer hesitated and lowered his voice to say, "Doctor, I was wondering, since the building's restriction on them has disappeared, why didn't they attack us in the hall just now?"

He swallowed, and the "rustling" sound in his ears forced him to speed up. "If they had attacked us then, I don't think we would have had a chance to run into the forest."

Jiang Cheng chose a very steep path, which was good for concealment and also because the limbs and body types of those monsters didn't seem suited for climbing.

Compared to chasing on flat ground, their greater advantage should still be in the sea.

Jiang Cheng, who was carefully scouting the way ahead, stepped on a low-lying area to make sure it could withstand his weight before continuing upward. "It's a hunt," he said.

"A hunt?" Fatty's eyes widened.

The word was not unfamiliar to him. When he was very young, he was brought up by his grandparents in a small county town in the countryside. Every warm afternoon, his grandfather would lean back in his broken wicker rocking chair, squinting his eyes as he listened to storytelling on the radio while watching him play.

When he was in the mood, he would grab him and tell him some historical allusions that he thought were very interesting, although he resisted every time.

But over time, he actually remembered a lot of things.

The hunt was one of them.

When it came to large-scale events involving ancient royalty, hunting had a very high profile, and both the Central Plains dynasties and the northern nomadic peoples enjoyed it.

It was a multi-person activity.

Specifically, it was a way of driving wild animals within a certain area to one place by surrounding them, and then shooting them down in a concentrated manner.

"They want to drive us to the stone plate?" Fatty asked in horror. This was not difficult to guess.

"I can't think of any other reason," Jiang Cheng said. The several knife wounds on his body severely limited his mobility, especially since the dense bushes would occasionally graze his wounds.

"Doctor, I think what you said about the hunt makes sense, but I always feel like their..." Fatty thought for a while and continued, "Their purpose doesn't seem as simple as killing us."

Fatty paused, then reached out and grabbed Jiang Cheng's arm. "Doctor," Fatty suddenly said, "doesn't this scene... feel familiar to you?"

Jiang Cheng stopped in his tracks. He slowly lowered his body, using the boulder beside him to block his figure, then turned to look at Fatty. "Go on."

"Do you remember the scene we saw near the stone plate before?" Fatty asked quickly, not daring to delay.

"You mean... those invaders suppressing the original inhabitants of Black Stone Town..."

Fatty licked his lips and nodded to the doctor. "Yes, Doctor, think about it. Those invaders gathered the original inhabitants together, then drove them from the town into the forest, and finally near the stone plate..."

"Isn't it... very similar to our current situation?" Fatty prompted.

After thinking for a moment, Jiang Cheng raised his head to look at Fatty, his eyes filled with something the latter didn't quite understand. "You're right," Jiang Cheng nodded. "The purpose between the two should be the same, otherwise it doesn't make sense."

Crouching behind the rock, Fatty looked out through the gaps in the bushes, trying to find out how far those monsters had chased them, then sighed. "But I just don't know what they're up to."

Jiang Cheng leaned against the rock, the "rustling" sounds around him irritating him. The mission was nearing its end, and the eerie atmosphere in this forest was much denser than before.

It was even able to influence his thinking to some extent.

But it seemed... he raised his head. This Fatty in front of him was much better. Although he looked very scared, his mind was clearer than before.

Two hunting operations spanning hundreds of years, if there was no connection between them, it was obviously impossible, but... Jiang Cheng's eyes flickered constantly.

Connection... where exactly is it?

And a way out...

Various clues surfaced in his mind. They were divided into different parts, pieced together, integrated... the temporarily meaningless ones were eliminated, and the newly emerged ones were refined again.

Until... a blood-stained face appeared in his mind.

The picture suddenly froze.

It was a girl's face, not very beautiful, ordinary, but not so ordinary, her smiling face covered with blood, her body cut in half.

It was the old man's granddaughter.

Then, like a camera shutter opening, terrifying smiling faces bloomed in his mind, all of them brutally slaughtered, but all of them leaving behind a strange smiling face.

They were the original inhabitants who had been slaughtered before...

They were smiling, as if... their conspiracy had succeeded.

A huge amount of information gathered in Jiang Cheng's mind, intertwined, almost exploding, but in the next moment, he suddenly raised his head, and his vision quieted down.

The connection between the two things... he had found it.

He also understood the purpose of those monsters following behind him.

Killing them was not the goal. The real purpose of those ghosts was to drive them to the vicinity of the stone plate, to be killed by them, just like... those "original inhabitants" who died with a smile.

They just wanted to be free.

This is a cycle...