Small Bonfire Begs for Fire!

Small Bonfire: Can greatly raise the temperature within a ten-meter radius. Has a deterrent and lethal effect on low-level aberrations, but also strongly attracts cold beasts.

Daily consumption: Wood x2 (first ignition free, no consumption for ten minutes)

Xia Hong had no time to inspect the so-called Camp System carefully. Amid the flood of information, he only searched swiftly for what he needed.

A deterrent and lethal effect on low-level aberrations!

This was what he needed.

Xia Hong turned his head toward Xia Chuan, who was already on the verge of death. Forcing himself upright, he fixed his gaze on that impostor Xia Ding.

A spark suddenly appeared before Xia Chuan.

The impostor Xia Ding lowered his head to look at the firelight before him. His brows furrowed as he vaguely sensed something was wrong.

But the spark was faint and seemed harmless.

Yet the next second, it exploded with a boom, and a crimson blaze over three meters high surged up.

The flames seemed poised to set the prairie ablaze, their reach rapidly spreading. They engulfed not only the impostor Xia Ding pinning Xia Chuan down, but also two other impostor Lumber Team members standing nearby.

"Ah... What is this? What kind of fire is this? Ah..."

In the blink of an eye, the impostor Xia Ding swallowed by the flames let out a terrified, miserable howl.

The other two impostor Lumber Team members did not even have time to make a sound before they were burned into two plumes of black smoke.

The impostor Xia Ding's body twisted and lurched about within the flames, clearly trying to escape, but the fire clung to him like maggots to bone.

His once-intact body was burned into a crimson skeleton in an instant. Then even the bones were reduced to nothing, and like the two impostor Lumber Team members, he became a plume of black smoke and vanished completely.

Meanwhile, Xia Hong had already helped Xia Chuan up. Turning to see the fire still burning where it stood, his face immediately filled with hope.

"Big Brother, what is this fire?"

"I don't know, but we're saved."

The impostor Xia Ding had not died even with his head split open.

Yet the moment he touched this Small Bonfire, he was reduced to ash.

"Everyone, stop fighting! Get over to the fire, now!"

Xia Hong turned and shouted at the people still fighting desperately inside the cave.

Someone had already noticed the scene of the impostor Xia Ding being burned to death. With that shout added to it, all the survivors immediately gathered around him.

Before long, the hundred-odd survivors of the camp had all disengaged from the battle and assembled behind Xia Hong.

The camp had suffered grievous casualties, while on the aberrations' side, apart from the three that had accidentally been burned to death by the Small Bonfire, the remaining twenty-three were completely unscathed.

The other Xia Ding led the remaining twenty-two impostor Lumber Team members toward the fire.

However, he stopped while still more than ten meters away.

As he looked at the fire, the impostor Xia Ding's eyes were full of wariness.

Yet he seemingly did not want to let Xia Hong's group go. After a moment, he sneered.

"Little thing, how long can your fire burn?"

"A very, very long time!"

Xia Hong sneered as well. Turning back to Xia Chuan and the others, he said, "Bring over all the wood at the back and make the fire bigger."

The camp's woodpile was stored along the wall on that side.

At his words, everyone hurried to carry over the wood from beside the wall.

As more and more wood was thrown in, the Small Bonfire steadily grew larger.

Xia Hong and the others deliberately extended the burning wood toward the impostor Xia Ding's group.

Before long, the firelight illuminated the entire cave.

As the flames spread, the wariness in the impostor Xia Ding's group grew ever deeper, and their bodies kept retreating.

The impostor Xia Ding remained locked in a standoff with them for over an hour.

Only when the flames forced him to the cave entrance, and he saw them still carrying wood over without end, did a resentful expression finally appear on his face. He stared deeply at Xia Hong, then turned and left with those impostor Lumber Team members.

Day had broken by then. Xia Hong and the others did not dare leave the vicinity of the fire, and could only watch the departing group from afar.

Once they could no longer see them and were certain the others had gone far away, Xia Hong finally let out a breath. A powerful wave of exhaustion immediately washed over him.

"Brother, there seems to be something wrong with this bonfire."

"I know. It only works within a ten-meter radius. Beyond that, the firelight is no different from the fires we lit before."

Xia Hong's back had long since been drenched in cold sweat.

He had realized it as soon as the flames spread beyond ten meters.

They had spread the fire through fifty or sixty meters of the cave, but beyond the ten-meter radius of the original Small Bonfire, the temperature increase elsewhere was no different from the fires they had lit before.

Recalling the Small Bonfire's system description, Xia Hong roughly understood.

The Small Bonfire only worked within a ten-meter radius.

Even if they used other means to spread the flames, it would have no effect.

Likewise, only the Small Bonfire had a deterrent and lethal effect on aberrations. The other fires they had lit were completely useless.

Everything he had done afterward had merely been a bluff to frighten those aberrations.

Fortunately, they had fallen for it.

After surviving a calamity, there was not the slightest trace of joy in the cave.

Because disaster was often accompanied by endless suffering.

At this moment, many people had realized that the real Xia Ding and his group had all been killed.

Those twelve Lumber Team members meant twelve families.

And with the slaughter inside the cave just now, at least seventy more lives had been taken.

The entire cave immediately filled with wails and sobs.

"Is the chief really dead?"

"Is my husband dead too?"

"My son was killed..."

"Mother, Mother, wake up!"

More than grief, Xia Hong felt an even stronger sense of stifled frustration.

From beginning to end, he knew nothing about the aberration at Redwood Ridge.

He did not even know what its true form looked like.

After the first two impostor Xia Dings had been exposed, the one ambushed by Xia Chuan had taken the lead. The other, whose head Xia Hong had split open, had merely attacked in a muddled daze, as though it possessed no intelligence.

After the first one was burned to death by the Small Bonfire, the muddled one came out and began taking the lead in speaking.

That was enough to prove that neither impostor Xia Ding was the real body.

In other words, the aberration at Redwood Ridge had not even shown itself, yet it had dealt them such a devastating blow.

And there were the two Xia Dings and those twenty-four impostor Lumber Team members—how had the other side created them, and how had it controlled them?

He knew nothing at all.

The other side made the slightest move, and they suffered horrific losses.

The key was that after sacrificing so many people, they had not gained even the tiniest scrap of useful information about their enemy.

That sense of helplessness left Xia Hong unbearably stifled.

Of course, there was even more fear.

Xia Hong turned and swept his gaze around the cave. Seeing that most people were still immersed in grief, he drew a deep breath, walked alone to the entrance, picked up nearby stones and wood, and began sealing the cave mouth.

After all that commotion, dawn had begun to break, and the temperature was dropping faster and faster. If they did not seal the entrance quickly, people would freeze to death.

And if they accidentally attracted cold beasts, it would be adding frost to snow.

Xia Hong's actions also reminded everyone else.

Xia Chuan was the first to step forward and help, followed by a second person, then a third.

In the end, men, women, and even children came to help.

Xia Hong looked back at the people of the camp. Though the world was freezing cold, a faint warmth rose in his heart.