Despair

The corpses of Wang Ming and the other three, along with the knife they had failed to take with them, all proved that Big Stone Camp had definitely encountered that grotesque creature before.

Finding only four corpses did not mean that only four people had died in Big Stone Camp.

After suffering heavy losses in their encounter with the grotesque creature, Shi Qing must have gone north to seek aid from Huang Zhao, Da Chuan, or even Rogue Camp.

That was why they had not seen anyone from Big Stone Camp around Redwood Ridge during this period.

But the plea for help had clearly not gone smoothly. Only Shi Qing and one other had returned, and they had brought back just a single sack of Crystal Fruits.

Given the creature's cunning nature and its habit of rarely showing itself in person, it was highly likely that it had controlled the corpses of the Great Xia Lumber Team and used them to attack Shi Qing and the others.

It had to be so. That was the only way to explain why Shi Qing had looked so utterly desperate when he and the others had just surrounded him.

He must have seen the fake Xia Ding and believed that Great Xia Camp had already been destroyed.

When he had suddenly seen eleven people as young as Xia Hong in the Lumbering Realm, Shi Qing had probably assumed that they were all grotesque creatures. That was why he had been so desperate.

But when Shi Dong had exposed his identity and Shi Qing realized that none of them were grotesque creatures, the despair on his face had instantly vanished, replaced by joy.

The fact that he even knew perfectly well that a grotesque creature could transform into another person further proved that Shi Qing had truly dealt with one before.

Shi Qing's behavior just now had been perfectly normal from beginning to end.

He did not know Wang Ming, so he had mistakenly taken him and the others for grotesque creatures.

But how had Shi Dong recognized him?

Awakened by Xia Chuan's words, Xia Hong suddenly realized that Shi Dong's behavior from beginning to end had been far too normal. Unlike Shi Qing, whose expression had changed repeatedly, Shi Dong had shown no fluctuations at all—and that was precisely what made it most abnormal.

More importantly, he had taken the initiative to call out Xia Hong's identity. Clearly, he had been afraid of clashing with them and delaying his return to camp with Shi Qing.

"The real Shi Dong is eighty percent likely to be dead. The one Shi Qing brought back to camp should be a fake."

As he raced after Shi Qing and the other man, Xia Hong grew increasingly certain that his guess was correct.

Unfortunately, Shi Qing had left long ago. Even though Xia Hong led everyone in a full-speed sprint, they still could not catch up. They chased all the way until they could see Tower Mountain, where Big Stone Camp was located, from afar, yet they still could not see the two men's backs.

Xia Hong kept increasing his pace, his expression growing graver and graver.

"Big Stone Camp is probably in for a disaster!"

At the foot of Tower Mountain, Shi Qing and the other man walked around to the eastern side. With practiced ease, they found the vines and quickly climbed to the mountaintop.

The mountaintop was still blanketed in snow, just as it had been when they left. Shi Qing went straight to the middle and brushed away the snow above it.

Beneath the snow was a square wooden board five meters wide.

And beneath that wooden board was Big Stone Camp's base.

Seeing that there were no marks on the board, and feeling warmth when he reached out to touch it, Shi Qing confirmed that nothing unusual had happened at the camp. His heart immediately relaxed.

He completely failed to notice the sinister smile that appeared on Shi Dong's face behind him the moment the wooden board was revealed.

Shi Qing opened the board directly and jumped down through the three-meter-wide opening. Shi Dong followed him down and casually closed the board behind them.

The moment the two landed, several people approached them with delighted expressions.

"Chief, you're finally back!"

"The camp's Crystal Fruits are all gone. If you hadn't come back, we were planning to organize a group to head out tonight."

"Why are there only two of you?"

"What about the other three?"

At their words, a pained expression immediately appeared on Shi Qing's face.

Just as he was about to tell everyone what had happened at Rogue Camp—

Whoosh...

Shi Dong, standing behind him, suddenly raised his hand and shot a nearly transparent white thread at him.

The white thread pierced straight through his shoulder blade like a fine needle, then traveled through every part of his body as though it were alive.

In the blink of an eye, Shi Qing was bound from head to toe by the white thread.

Faced with such a sudden change, Shi Qing did not even have time to speak before his body became completely immobile and toppled sideways to the ground.

"Chief, what's wrong?"

"Shi Dong, what did you do?"

The people who had just come over were even more bewildered. Some went to help Shi Qing up, while others questioned Shi Dong about what had happened.

"Hehehehehe..."

Shi Dong did not speak. He merely lowered his head and suddenly let out a smug laugh that sounded like scraping wood shavings—hoarse and grating.

The laughter was not only eerie but savage as well, making one's hair stand on end.

Hearing that familiar yet horrifying laugh, Shi Qing, still lying on the ground and not yet lifted up, abruptly changed color and whipped his head around to look at Shi Dong.

"Thanks to you for bringing me here. Otherwise, where would I have found so many people? Hehehehehehe..."

Shi Qing instantly realized that this Shi Dong was fake.

The fourth time—the time when Wang Rui and Sun Xinzhu had hunted Shi Dong down. That was it.

They had all thought that only Wang Rui and Sun Xinzhu had been replaced, but in fact, Shi Dong had been replaced at the same time.

This grotesque creature had actually staged a self-sacrifice ruse, deliberately creating the scene of Wang Rui and Sun Xinzhu pursuing Shi Dong, then controlling Shi Dong and blending in beside him.

Did that not mean that everything they had discussed in the Rogue Camp hall about luring and surrounding it had been understood by it, from beginning to end, with perfect clarity?

Poor Luo Ming and the others were still following Yang Ning and Li Hu, hoping to lure the Wood Puppet Grotesque out again.

As it turned out, the enemy had already infiltrated them from within.

It was over. It was all over!

"Run! Run! Everyone, run!!!"

Shi Qing suddenly turned his head and shouted toward the people around the campfire, his face nearly crimson and his voice hysterical.

He did not know what method the Wood Puppet Grotesque had used to control Shi Dong, but he could be certain that he could not move a single inch right now.

More than three hundred people in the camp would all die without exception!

Run. Run together. Perhaps there was still a sliver of hope.

Clinging to this thought, Shi Qing tried to continue speaking and urge everyone to flee for their lives. But the moment he opened his mouth, the white threads binding him pierced straight through his lips and sewed his mouth shut.

"Mmmph! Mmmph!"

Shi Qing could only make muffled sounds. Seeing that everyone in the camp was still bewildered and at a loss, his face instantly flushed purple, and his pupils filled with blood from his panic.

But "Shi Dong" moved at that moment.

He lunged forward, driving his fist straight into the head of the nearest person.

Before that person could say a word, his head exploded like a watermelon, spraying yellow and white gore in every direction. The scene was unimaginably bloody.

And that was not all.

"Shi Dong" wore a savage expression. He struck out with both hands, grabbing two people who tried to flee. His ten fingers suddenly exerted force, plunging almost to the roots into their necks.

The two men likewise had no time to speak. Blood poured from all seven orifices, and they collapsed dead.

"Ke-ke-ke-ke-ke..."

As the stench of blood gradually spread, the smile on "Shi Dong's" face grew more brazen and twisted. It seemed that personally slaughtering these people was an immense pleasure to it.

In the flash of an instant, three lives were gone.

The other people around the campfire, who had been bewildered and helpless, now understood perfectly well that the thing before them was not Shi Dong at all, but a devil.

"Ah..."

"Shi Dong's gone mad!"

"Run, run..."

"Chief, save us!"

The people's fear was like an adrenaline shot for the grotesque creature. It charged into the crowd and harvested lives in a brutally twisted fashion. Finding fists too slow, it even picked up a Stone Axe from the side.

Watching his relatives, friends, wife, children, and every other person in the camp being slaughtered for no reason, Shi Qing, lying on the ground, was enraged to the extreme. His eyes nearly bulged from their sockets.

But at that moment, he could not even move, let alone speak.

He could do nothing.

When he saw his wife die horribly in the crowd, Shi Qing's tears fell like rain.

His immense pain gradually transformed into profound despair.