Evening,
Inside Stone City, beside a large pit,
"B-big brother, s-so many human skeletons..."
Xiao Xiao looked at the countless human skeletons in the large pit, her small face a little pale.
"It seems Lin Senhai wasn't talking nonsense," Ye Feng let out a sigh of relief.
"Big brother, were all those people tricked here like us, killed because they couldn't escape?" Xiao Xiao asked Ye Feng.
"Probably only a portion. Most of the skeletons in this pit were killed by the Crocodile Men and other monsters!" Ye Feng replied, looking at the incomplete and even completely shattered skeletons.
"Crocodile Men?" Xiao Xiao looked confused.
"I'll explain that later. We need to find a place to spend the night..."
...
As night fell,
Ye Feng and Xiao Xiao returned to where they stayed last night, a stone with a large hole dug out inside.
Today, the ogre hunting squad, the hellhound, and Lin Senhai had all been focused on Ye Feng and hadn't found this place.
Moreover, the visibility was good, and the stone provided defense, making it a decent place to spend the night.
"Big brother, why aren't we staying inside the spherical castle in Stone City at night?" Xiao Xiao, who was roasting a corn cob, looked at Ye Feng curiously.
This afternoon, Ye Feng had taken her around Stone City to gather some supplies, but they hadn't stayed there. This made Xiao Xiao quite confused, as the spherical castle was obviously much more defensible than their current location!
"That place has significant, unpredictable dangers." According to Lin Senhai, the absurdly powerful Crocodile Man would occasionally approach him, providing him with enhanced serums or other items in exchange for survivors with bracelets. Ye Feng didn't want the Crocodile Man to suddenly show up while he was asleep. After all, dealing with just Lin Senhai had already stretched him thin...
"Oh, I see." Seeing that Ye Feng had no intention of explaining further, Xiao Xiao didn't ask any more questions.
Soon, Ye Feng and Xiao Xiao ate their dinner by the bonfire.
Having witnessed the ogres' horrifying "kitchen" earlier, neither of them had an appetite for meat.
Therefore, dinner consisted entirely of vegetarian food such as roasted corn cobs, shredded coconut buns, toast, steamed buns, and pickled vegetables.
The packaging bags for these foods had been opened during the day to be used by Xiao Xiao for paint, so they had to be eaten quickly to prevent spoilage.
Having exercised vigorously together during the day, both were ravenously hungry and began to eat heartily, even somewhat ravenously...
...
After dinner,
Ye Feng and Xiao Xiao lay by the bonfire, lazily watching the stars in the sky.
"The night sky is so beautiful!" Ye Feng couldn't help but exclaim.
In the place he used to live, due to air pollution, it was usually impossible to see the stars clearly at night, and even a blue sky was a rare sight.
"Yeah~" Xiao Xiao also stretched, resting her hands behind her head, quietly watching the twinkling stars, a faint smile on her small face.
After a while, Ye Feng opened the [Area Chat Channel].
Shi Yue: "Has everyone noticed that the rate at which people disappear or are replaced on the survival potential leaderboard has obviously increased recently!!"
Soon, a message caught Ye Feng's attention.
"That's right, I've noticed too~ The speed of updates and replacements has indeed become much faster, especially after the combat power leaderboard appeared!"
"Yeah, and after many of those IDs come down from the survival potential leaderboard, they just disappear completely, impossible to find~"
"Exactly, that's what happened. Most of the disappearing IDs are those ranked lower..."
...
"Hoo!"
Seeing this, Ye Feng took a deep breath.
If his earlier concern about the danger of those ranked on the survival potential leaderboard was just a possibility, then the accelerated ranking changes or the outright disappearance of IDs on the survival potential leaderboard after the combat power leaderboard appeared was undoubtedly a confirmation of his conjecture!
Being on the survival potential leaderboard but not on the combat power leaderboard... the implication was clear!
This was essentially telling everyone which people on the survival potential leaderboard were "fat sheep" that could be slaughtered, and which were powerful figures not to be provoked!
...
Shi Yue: "By the way, something big happened today!"
Immediately after, Shi Yue sent another message.
"What big thing?"
"Speak up, don't keep us in suspense!"
...
Shi Yue: "Lin hr hai, ranked 500 on our regional combat power leaderboard, his ID has disappeared!"
"Lin hr hai? The one who offered shelter?"
"Seems so, I remember this ID too!"
"That's right, it's him!"
"Was that person killed?"
...
Shi Yue: "That's not the point. The point is that the moment his ID disappeared, Zhang San's ID appeared, and then quickly disappeared again!~"
"You upstairs, what the heck? What are you trying to say?"
Shi Yue: "I've observed that when IDs disappear from the leaderboard and become impossible to find, and are then quickly replaced by another ID, it's usually someone on the combat power leaderboard replacing someone on the survival potential leaderboard!"
Shi Yue: "I suspect that people on the combat power leaderboard are hunting those on the survival potential leaderboard to obtain their supplies and so on!"
Shi Yue: "It's just that this time it's the other way around; the ID on the combat power leaderboard completely disappeared and became unsearchable, while someone on the survival potential leaderboard replaced the ID on the combat power leaderboard!"
"Are you saying that Lin hr hai, ranked 500 on the combat power leaderboard, went to trouble Zhang San, ranked first on the survival potential leaderboard, and got killed!"
Shi Yue: "Exactly!"
"So, does that mean Big Brother Zhang San's combat power is at least higher than the 500th ranked person?"
Shi Yue: "Zhang San's combat power is very strange; it seems to fluctuate greatly~"
Shi Yue: "Today, I even saw his combat power momentarily appear in the top three hundred, but it only lasted for a few seconds... In the end, he wasn't even on the combat power leaderboard!"
"The person ranked first on the survival potential leaderboard is indeed not simple!"
"Me too upstairs +1"
...
"But didn't Lin hr hai keep posting messages about providing shelter and food?"
"Yes, it seems the food was even meat, and bone soup..."
"I've almost forgotten what meat tastes like..."
Shi Yue: "This is also what puzzles me. However, I always felt that the shelters and food provided by Lin hr hai's group were suspicious!"
"Yeah, I specifically paid attention to those unfamiliar IDs that helped him post shelter and food information before, and now most of them can't be found."
User 34687: "The shelter information for Clayden Town is fake! Fake! Fake!"
User 34687: "That's an ogre stronghold established by Lin hr hai and Du Ai Ma Shi Ying and others. The so-called meat is human flesh!"
User 34687: "The promised shelter and food information were just to lure you over... If you really went, you'd become their food..."
User 34687: "Oh, and Lin hr hai's real name is Lin Senhai, he said so himself, but it might be fake too."
"Who are you? How do you know so much?"
User 34687: "I damn well believed those ogres' lies and almost ended up in their stomachs!"
User 34687: "If it weren't for a badass who ran away overnight, and they mobilized their entire force to deal with that person, I'd probably be on the chopping board right now..."
"Is that true or not?"
User 34687: "Believe it or not, if you want to die, go to Clayden Town!"
...
"As expected, some of the captured people managed to escape~"
When Ye Feng and Xiao Xiao went to inspect Stone City today, they found traces of a fight.
There were only about a dozen survivor corpses at the scene; the rest were unaccounted for.
Now it seemed the remaining people had escaped.
Immediately, Ye Feng opened the [Trading Channel].
After the intense battle today, the infrared sensor alarm, which was important for Ye Feng to sleep soundly, was broken. He wanted to see if anyone was selling one.
"Nothing ah!~"
After searching for a while, Ye Feng closed the [Trading Channel] with some frustration.
Although he had prepared himself mentally, he couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.
"Big brother, look here!"
Suddenly, Xiao Xiao's voice rang out.
...