Chapter 8: The Bloody Pond Underfoot

  (Thanks to "Mò Shì Mí 123" for the reward and encouragement, if you like this book, please click on the collection and send a recommendation ticket, Xiao Long thanks ~)

  "Bess! Bess! Bess! What's wrong with you, Bess?"

  Sarah and June heard Beth's scream and knew that something was wrong with her, so they immediately shouted anxiously.

  "Don't rush, I'll go take a look first, you guys follow behind me and move slowly."

  Xiao Xuan stopped Sara and Ruo Nu, who were about to enter the cave, and rushed in first. This cave was different from the previous ones they had passed through, it was more spacious and allowed people to walk with their waists bent, without having to crawl inside. So Xiao Xuan's speed was very fast, when he turned a corner, he immediately saw a ray of sunlight shining here. However, Xiao Xuan's temperament was much calmer than Beth's, combined with the miserable cry that Beth had made earlier, Xiao Xuan's vigilance had been raised long ago. He quietly moved his footsteps towards the light.

  Xiao Xuan's face gradually revealed a look of enlightenment, and it turned out that it wasn't sunlight, but the glow emitted by the special rocks inside the cave, refracted through the water, and projected onto this rock wall, making it seem like the entrance from afar. And just in front of this place, there was actually a pit-like hole, which was very smooth due to the impact of flowing water, and if one wasn't careful, they could easily slip down.

  Xiao Xuan shone the flashlight downwards and indeed saw Beth, who had fallen to the bottom. Beth's legs were covered in blood, with bone fragments visible beneath the surface. The pit was partially filled with water, which continued to rise as groundwater seeped in from above. Even if Beth was still alive and hadn't died immediately from the fall, the constant influx of water made it impossible for her to open her mouth to shout for help.

  "Xiao Xuan, how is Beth? Where is she?" At this time, Sarah and Ruo Nu also came in and saw Xiao Xuan standing in front of them, hastily asking.

  "She fell down there, get the rope ready, I'll go down and rescue her!"

  Xiao Xuan actually didn't plan to rescue Beth, but he knew that Sarah and Zeno wouldn't be able to leave her behind. Rather than letting them go down and bring this leg-broken guy back up, it was better for him to go down first and find an opportunity to get rid of her directly. Xiao Xuan knew that soon after, they would encounter the attack of the man-eating demons, and at that time, he didn't want to have a burden by his side.

  "Okay, Xuan, here, the rope." Sarah hastily handed the rope to Xiao Xuan. Afterwards, she was still extremely worried and looked down into the pit, but Xiao Xuan, due to his magician physique, had a much stronger sense of perception than Sarah. He could feel that Beth below was still alive, but Sarah didn't have this ability, and at this time, she was still anxious about whether Beth was dead or alive.

  Tying the rope, Xiao Xuan handed the other end of the rope to Ruo Nu and Sara. Su Mo also silently grasped the rope in his hand. Then, Xiao Xuan began to climb down into the pit hole.

  Above the pit, there was a constant flow of groundwater, making the rock wall very slippery. When Xiao Xuan went down, he was even more careful, but it was only about ten meters high. It took Xiao Xuan almost ten minutes to really climb down, his feet stepping on the bottom of the pit, with accumulated water overflowing his knees. However, there should be other drainage gaps at the bottom of the pit, so even though water was constantly pouring in from above, the water level would not rise.

  "Xuan……" Bess opened her mouth to shout Xiao Xuan's name, but a big mouthful of water was poured in, and her expression looked very painful. Xiao Xuan took out his flashlight to check on Bess' situation, and found that the bones at her knee joint had already been dislocated, with one bone spur piercing through her skin. This kind of injury was almost equivalent to a severe fracture. At this time, if they were to bring her up, she would truly become a burden to the team.

  "Relax, I've got you." Xiao Xuan squatted down and hugged Beth, trying to lift her up. Beth also instinctively straightened her waist to cooperate with Xiao Xuan's movements. However, in the next moment, Xiao Xuan's hands grasped Beth's neck and violently twisted it to the left!

  "Crack!"

  A crisp cracking sound echoed, and Beth's head twisted 180 degrees in an instant, her face still frozen in a shocked expression, for she could never have imagined why her best friend Xiao Xuan would suddenly turn against her at this moment.

  After settling Bess, Xiao Xuan directly tied the rope to Bess's body and used a flashlight to signal three times towards the top of the pit, indicating that they should start pulling the rope upwards to pull her up.

  Bess's body was slowly lifted up, while Xiao Xuan had to wait for the rope to come down again before he could go up. So at this time, he could take his time to shine his flashlight into the pit and look around, especially noticing the direction of the water flow.

  As expected, there was a fairly large gap on the edge of the pit. Xiao Xuan squatted down and measured it with his hand. The gap was just big enough for one person to squeeze through sideways, but inside was all water. If he were to crawl in from here, he would have to hold his breath, and no one knew how long it would take before he could find an air pocket to surface. If he crawled in and found that the inside was almost a sealed "water tank", he might be drowned alive. However, if the situation became critical enough, this place might be worth trying, but this was truly a gamble, a bet on his own life.

  Beth's body was pulled up, and then a painful cry came from above. Of course, Sarah and Juno would not have thought that Beth had only broken her leg and was not going to die. The real killer of Beth was their good friend - Xiao Xuan. They just thought Beth died directly from the fall.

  The rope quickly came down, Xiao Xuan re-tied the rope around his waist and, with the help of the people above pulling him up, he climbed back up using both hands and feet.

  "Let's put her body here for now, we'll go out first and then hire someone to come over and transport the body together for burial." Xiao Xuan patted Fasha's shoulder comfortingly.

  "It's just like this, Sarah, let's go quickly and get out of here." Zhūnǒ said, wiping away her tears.

  Sarah took a deep breath and nodded. Since the person was already dead, she didn't dwell on it anymore. The most important thing was for the living to get out first.

  Everyone collected their emotions and continued on their way, avoiding that pit and continuing forward along the cave.

  After walking for about another quarter of an hour, the space in front of him suddenly opened up, and the area instantly became much larger. At this moment, Xiao Xuan's eyebrows also furrowed deeply together, because he caught a whiff of a strong bloody smell.

  "Runo, drop a firework!" Xiao Xuan said in a tone that was almost like an order.

  Ruo Nu was stunned for a moment, but still obediently pulled out the firework and threw it over. For a time, this rocky space was illuminated, and everyone saw clearly that in front of them was a mountain pile formed by a accumulation of white bones, among which there were animal skeletons and obviously human skeletons. The scene was extremely gloomy and terrifying.

  Just then, the firework seemed to have stimulated those cannibals. The cannibals who had been secretly watching and following them finally began to prepare for an attack. One by one, they started climbing out of the rock walls, while others stood on the ground, confronting Xiao Xuan and the others from a distance.

  "What in the world is this thing?!" Sarah shrieked, clearly having never expected to encounter such a creature at the bottom of the rocky layer.

  The appearance of the cannibals is really ugly, their skin is gray, with ferocious faces and sunken eye sockets, a bit like the "Gollum" in The Hobbit.

  "Be careful, we're going in!" Xiao Xuan shielded Sara as he firmly said.

  "What, have you gone mad?" Zhūnō exclaimed in shock.

  "If you don't rush forward, how can you get out?" Xiao Xuan shouted in anger. At this moment, he no longer had the elegance and bookish air of before, because at this moment, it was truly a matter of life and death. Xiao Xuan hadn't seen the true god yet, so he didn't want to die!

  The cannibal demons also launched a formal attack at this time, they pounced from the rock wall and the ground together. Xiao Xuan's gun finally fired at this time, Xiao Xuan's shooting was very accurate, firing seven shots in a row, directly hitting seven heads of cannibal demons, some were killed directly, and some were injured and rolling on the ground. On the other side, Su Muran also shot with her gun, her shooting was not much worse than Xiao Xuan's, several cannibal demons that tried to pounce over were directly shot dead.

  "You... you're carrying guns?" Sarah exclaimed in surprise.

  "This is not the time for questions, we'll blaze a trail with our guns, everyone charge forward together!"

  Xiao Xuan pushed Sara, and only then did she come to her senses and start running forward with Ruo Nu. Xiao Xuan followed closely behind, shooting as he went, and Su Mo Ran was the same. At this moment, Xiao Xuan and Su Mo Ran had reached a nearly perfect tacit understanding, each person clearing one direction of the warning zone. The two cooperated seamlessly, without any blind spots, and every ghoul that tried to rush over was shot down by one of them.

  The crowd rushed through the empty area and entered a slightly narrower corridor, which reduced the range of the man-eating monster's attack and also reduced the pressure on Xiao Xuan and Su Mo Ran.

  "I'm out of bullets." Su Mo said.

  "Here you go." Xiao Xuan took out two clips from the spatial ring and tossed them to Su Mochen, who replaced the bullets with an extremely swift and professional manner, re-entering a state of high alert. As soon as everyone entered this passageway, the man-eating demons that had attempted to attack suddenly dwindled in number.

  "Are you all right?" Xiao Xuan asked Sara.

  "I'm fine, where is the exit? Should I keep running in that direction?"

  "He also ran in that direction." Xiao Xuan nodded and replied.

  "Xiao Xuan!" At this time, Ruo Nu suddenly shouted out Xiao Xuan's name loudly.

  "What's wrong?"

  "I feel like the ground under my feet is a bit soft..."

  Upon hearing this, everyone looked down at their feet and only then did they discover that the ground beneath them had begun to twist and writhe. Suddenly, it was as if the earth had sunk in, and the solid ground under their feet turned into a swamp, causing everyone to tumble in together.

  This is not a swamp, this is originally a congealed blood pool!