The sun set in the west, and the golden afterglow illuminated the primeval forest of the Dark Continent's southeastern coast. It was as if nature had donned a golden cloak, presenting a scene of "birds singing and flowers fragrant."
Screech Screech
At the crown of a towering giant tree, a flock of small carnivorous birds, resembling toothless pterosaurs, gathered in groups, spreading their fleshy wings, flapping rapidly, and emitting loud calls towards the disc-like golden sun.
"Rustle..."
Pushing aside the vegetation in front of them, combat boots made faint sounds as they stepped into the damp grass.
"Pant Pant"
"How... how big... is this... forest?" Among Illumi's group, a slightly plump woman leaning on a walking stick made from a tree branch wiped the sweat from her forehead, panting heavily. She was Gina, a physicist and one of the four survivors from the fifty-member expert team.
Suddenly, her foot slipped, and with a "thud," she fell to the ground. "Are you alright?" Hercules stopped and took Gina's hand, but Gina remained squatting on the ground, her ample chest rising and falling. Hercules could tell she had reached her limit; she couldn't walk any further.
"Mr. Illumi, Mr. Beyond, let's rest for a while." Hercules looked at Illumi and Beyond, who were leading the group, took a deep breath, and shouted. After shouting, Hercules himself was also panting heavily. As an ordinary person, he, too, was almost unable to walk.
"Tch, how troublesome." At the very front of the team, Greed glanced at them disdainfully. If not for these few people, they could have exited this primeval forest much faster.
"It's about time. Let's set up camp here." Illumi looked up. The golden afterglow illuminated the grim and dark primeval forest through the gaps in the towering giant tree branches, bringing a sliver of light to the otherwise gloomy forest. But this was merely an illusion.
According to human world time, it was already nine in the evening. Night on the Dark Continent would arrive more abruptly than in the human world. Often, one moment the sky would be filled with afterglow,
but the next, it would be pitch black, making the grim primeval forest even more frightening. Their first night on the Dark Continent had been spent amidst a sea of fire and torrential rain, where large sections of the forest around the fire were brightly lit, leaving no darkness. Thus, tonight would be their first true night on the Dark Continent.
"Thump, thump..."
Illumi's command was issued. The Avengers soldiers, as usual, used their steel knives to clear the ground beneath their feet, completely removing the dense vegetation. This was to prevent anything unclean from burrowing into their camp while they rested.
"Click." An Avenger rubbed a steel knife against a flint, igniting the tinder collected from around them. He placed it in the bonfire, then added a large amount of damp firewood. The bonfire crackled, emitting thick white smoke.
"Clatter, clatter..." Cervantes heard a strange sound and looked around. He saw those individuals called Avengers taking four rectangular objects containing silver metal rods from their large backpacks and inserting them into the ground at the four cardinal directions of the camp: east, south, west, and north. They seemed to be setting up some kind of defensive fortification.
"What are they doing?" Cervantes looked at Illumi, who was sitting on the ground resting, taking various foods from an Avenger's backpack, and asked curiously. Illumi merely glanced at him without replying, unscrewing his water bottle and putting the mouth to his lips, his throat bobbing.
"Uh..." Cervantes opened his mouth, but had nothing to say. If Illumi didn't want to speak, he couldn't force him.
After hydrating, Illumi looked around at the camp's perimeter. The objects installed by the Avenger soldiers around the camp were a new type of weapon system developed by their Weapons Research Institute the Remote Sentry Weapon System. It could continuously learn or adjust its operation based on the changing conditions of the environment it was deployed in. It could also independently search for, identify, and attack targets without human intervention.
"Hum~" The Avengers released small Hawk Drones to scout the camp's surroundings. Through night vision sensors and ultrasonic detection, the terrain around the camp was completely transformed into a 3D model and transmitted into the weapon system and neuro-mechanical helmets. Any unusual movement would be responded to instantly.
"You only need to know that it's something that protects our safety."
"For example?"
"It can act as a sentry in place of humans, automatically identifying and attacking any creature that approaches within a hundred meters of the camp." King Bradley, seeing that the hunters in Beyond Netero's team were very interested in these things, offered a brief explanation.
"That's truly... convenient." Sergio's lips twitched upon hearing this. These guys carried so much advanced weaponry and equipment. Compared to their hunters' preparations, this group was simply too professional.
"Come, sit here." Hercules and Isaac, one on each side, helped Gina, the physicist, to sit among Illumi and Beyond Netero's group of hunters. "It hurts." Gina took off her boots and immediately winced in pain. Under the bonfire's light, blisters had formed on her feet.
"Even with the reduced travel speed of only sixty kilometers a day, an ordinary person's body still can't handle it." Cervantes looked at the blisters on Gina's feet. Under the bonfire's light, his expression made Gina a little scared.
"Don't worry, I can handle it." Seeing the atmosphere turn grim, another curly-haired woman from the expert team took out a first-aid kit from her backpack and treated Gina's blisters. Her name was Tessa,
an emergency medical technician from the United States of Edimei, Yorknew. She had originally intended to join an NGO, but by some twist of fate, ended up in the Kakin Empire's investigation team.
"We've been walking for two days now, and our daily marching time has reached 17 hours. When will we finally get out of this primeval forest?" Tessa asked Hercules, asking the question on her mind while treating Gina.
"According to Ozma Federation's past exploration records, this forest is 1800 kilometers wide."
"Length?"
"No, it's width. Its length is immeasurable."
Tessa was momentarily speechless. An 1800-kilometer-wide primeval forest, with an immeasurable length. In the human world, perhaps only the largest primeval forest could compare to it. And now, they were actually going to cross this dangerous and vast primeval forest of the Dark Continent with their own two feet.
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