Ambush

After quite a while, Chen Shouyi finally stopped praising Shell Girl, who was dizzy with intoxication from the flattery.

He stood up and stretched.

Suddenly, his body stiffened, and his pupils shrank sharply.

At some point, a dugout canoe had appeared on the distant sea. Two barbarians sat in it, rowing nonstop as they seemed to be heading this way.

"Barbarians!"

He came to his senses with a jolt and quickly lowered himself.

After his body had been modified once, his eyesight had improved tremendously. Although the dugout canoe was still more than a kilometer away, he could clearly make out the details.

The dugout canoe was enormous. Chen Shouyi estimated that its diameter alone was four or five meters, and it was about ten meters long.

One could imagine how huge and towering the tree had been when it was cut down.

The two barbarians aboard the dugout wore animal hides around their waists, their upper bodies completely **. Chen Shouyi could not tell whether they were carrying weapons, but their bronze-colored, knotted muscles clearly showed how strong they were.

His heart pounded violently, his breathing quickened, and fear made him tremble slightly.

Ever since the bloody incident at the bookstore, especially after hearing that even a veteran martial artist like Zhou Shaofeng had died, he had developed a phobia of barbarians. Although he knew perfectly well that not every barbarian could be as powerful as that one, his subconscious still substituted that barbarian into the picture.

"I can't stay here anymore. I have to report the passage."

Chen Shouyi swiftly stuffed the book and all the scattered items into his briefcase, then grabbed Shell Girl, who still looked bewildered, and hurried toward the nearby passage entrance.

After a few steps, he returned to the Underground Parking Lot and continued running wildly outside.

But gradually, he slowed down more and more. By the time he was almost at the parking lot entrance, he stopped.

A powerful impulse seemed to surge straight into his mind, making his blood boil throughout his body.

Could he really just give up this Space Channel?

Give up the Gold Sand on the island?

Just because of two barbarians who had appeared out of nowhere, with unknown strength?

His physical qualities had now basically reached a martial artist's standard, and he was not far behind the barbarians.

Besides, perhaps their strength was not actually unknown.

Chen Shouyi suddenly had an idea. He glanced left and right, then quickly walked to the wall and leaned against it at an angle. His thoughts entered Gray Mist Space, and he immediately saw the two barbarians aboard the dugout in the Memory Leaf.

A moment later, he opened his eyes.

From what his body sensed, the two barbarians were somewhat stronger than him, but only by a limited amount—at most one and a half times stronger. They were far weaker than the mysterious barbarian from the bookstore.

He hesitated, gritted his teeth, then abruptly turned and ran back toward the passage.

As soon as he entered the Otherworld, he took a deep breath and found a wooden stick lying on the ground.

This wooden stick was not the coarse stick he had picked up at the construction site. It was a stick he had whittled down little by little with a knife after cutting down a small tree here out of boredom. Its texture was hard as iron.

Although he had not sharpened it, as long as he moved fast enough, ** could not stop it.

He lay in the grass and looked toward the dugout.

By then, the dugout had already begun slowly approaching Small Island.

After more than ten minutes, the dugout finally touched the beach and began to run aground.

The two barbarians jumped out, pulled out a rope as thick as an arm, and waded through waist-deep seawater to the huge rock on the shore. They looped the rope around it and secured it, preventing the dugout from being swept away when the tide rose.

The two barbarians looked at Small Island and seemed delighted. They chatted nonstop, occasionally letting out booming laughter. Then they turned back, retrieved something resembling a leather water bag from the dugout, and quickly headed up the mountain.

Chen Shouyi noticed that they were not carrying weapons. This was undoubtedly good news for him.

But it also meant that this island was likely not their first visit. As barbarians still living in the era of primitive tribes, they would have an almost instinctive awareness of danger in an unfamiliar environment.

If they did not know for certain that there was no danger here, they would never have been so careless.

Yet another question appeared in Chen Shouyi's mind.

Why had they come here?

Looking at the leather water bag that seemed intended for storing water, he thoughtfully turned his gaze toward a Water Pool more than a hundred meters away.

Could they be here to obtain fresh water?

The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed. This Water Pool was the only water source on Small Island. It was only a dozen or so meters across, yet extremely deep, with no bottom visible at a glance. For the sake of caution, Chen Shouyi usually never went near it. Even when thirsty, he brought mineral water with him.

If there was any place that was most likely their destination, it could only be this Water Pool.

He took a deep breath, casually placed Shell Girl to one side, then gripped the wooden stick and moved toward the Water Pool under the cover of the grass, keeping his body low and moving lightly yet swiftly.

Half a minute later, he crouched down again.

Chen Shouyi's judgment had been correct. They really did seem to have come only to fetch water.

The two barbarians approached with the familiarity of old acquaintances, chatting as they came.

The barbarians' appearance did not fit human aesthetic standards—at least, these two did not. Their faces were coarse and ugly beyond description.

One was slightly older, wrinkles already showing on his forehead. His scorched-yellow buckteeth protruded slightly, and his nostrils pointed toward the sky.

The other was in his prime, yet had a pair of cross-eyes. His face looked as though it had been smashed with a brick, completely flat.

Neither of them showed the slightest vigilance. Who could have imagined that on this desolate Small Island, someone would be lying in the grass, preparing to take their lives?

Within a few minutes, they reached the Water Pool.

They immediately crouched down and began filling their container with water.

"Now!"

His expression turned fierce. He pushed off hard with his foot and shot out from the hidden grass like an arrow released from the bow.

With just a few steps, he crossed the dozen or so meters.

The older barbarian seemed to notice the movement and instinctively turned his head.

He saw a wooden stick thrust rapidly toward his face. In the next moment, it pierced into his throat, its momentum unspent as it shattered his cervical vertebrae and broke through the back of his neck.

The entire process happened in a flash, swift as thunder and impossible to guard against. Only then did the other barbarian, a robust man in his prime, react. He let out an enraged roar and lunged ferociously at Chen Shouyi.

Chen Shouyi was astonishingly calm. None of the panic from his first battle remained. He swiftly pulled the wooden stick from the barbarian's throat and nimbly retreated a step.

The barbarian lunged into empty air, and his body inevitably paused for a fraction of a second. Before he could make another move,

a standard Forward Lunge Stab sent the wooden stick flashing like lightning straight through his chest.

Chen Shouyi did not linger in place for even an instant. After landing the blow, he immediately withdrew and retreated.

The wound in his chest, as thick as an infant's arm, immediately gushed with blood.

However, such an injury was not enough to kill him on the spot.

He roared, his voice shaking the air like thunder. With a savage expression, he charged at Chen Shouyi without even looking at the wound.

But after only a few steps, his pace grew slower and slower. Finally, unable to hold himself up, he slowly fell to his knees.

Only after the two barbarians had completely died did Chen Shouyi let out a breath of relief and sit down on the grass.

His hands were trembling slightly, beyond his control.

During the battle, he had been completely focused, without a single distracting thought. His mind had held only one thought: kill. But now that he had come back to himself, a wave of fear washed over him.

He felt as though he had become a different person. There had been no hesitation, no struggle, and no fear. He could hardly believe that such a violent impulse had been hidden deep within him.

After all, he and these two barbarians had no personal grudge. There had only been a conflict of interests.

Their existence had blocked his path!

Or perhaps he should add the influence of propaganda. On Earth, barbarians were practically synonymous with demons, and whenever they appeared, it was always associated with slaughter and bloodshed.

He gradually came back to his senses. What was done was done, and he stopped thinking about it.

He stood up, his mind quickly calming.

Sometimes, the panic after killing someone did not come from the killing itself, but from the consequences it triggered. On this island in the Otherworld, let alone the deaths of two barbarians—even if two humans died, no one would be able to notice.

However, the two corpses had to be dealt with. Not only would they begin to stink, but if more barbarians came, their presence might at least help muddle the trail.

He walked forward, hoisted one corpse onto his shoulder, and trudged step by step down the mountain.

The beached dugout was still tied up where it had been.

He waded through the seawater and placed the corpse in the canoe.

The dugout was quite spacious. If people squeezed together, more than a dozen could fit inside.

He found dozens of large and small sea fish, a rough Fishing Net, two oars, several blackish objects that looked like sweet potatoes, and two spears.

Looking at the strange spears, each more than three meters long and pointed at both ends, Chen Shouyi could not help feeling relieved. If the two barbarians had been carrying weapons, the battle probably would not have been so easy.

He made two trips, carrying both corpses onto the dugout.

Then he untied the rope. Taking advantage of the incoming tide, he immediately put all his strength into shoving the dugout toward the open sea.

It was not that he did not know the dugout and the corpses aboard it still posed a hidden danger.

But the dugout was too huge and too heavy, making it difficult to destroy all traces. Leaving it here would only be more dangerous.

He watched as the dugout gradually drifted farther and farther away.

He silently prayed, hoping that this matter had ended here and that both sides could remain safe from one another.

After watching for a long while, he exhaled, carried the two spears in his hands, and turned back.

When he reached the place near the passage where he had been staying, he discovered that Shell Girl was gone.

Cold sweat broke out all over him.

Earlier, with his blood boiling and his entire attention focused on ambushing the Water Pool, he had not had time to tie Shell Girl up again. He had simply tossed her aside.

Now, she had clearly taken the opportunity to escape.