Shen Lan put down the hand covering his mouth, just about to retort, when Aegon and the others had already walked up to them. Even though they couldn't understand the content, it was indeed a bit crass to chat in front of the deceased's relatives. Shen Lan, no matter how thick-skinned, wouldn't do such a thing. So he shut his mouth again in embarrassment, hanging his head and following beside Xia Chuan, returning with the main group.

Nothing that the leader worried about happened on the way back. There were no wild beast attacks, nor people from other tribes causing trouble.

The day ended on a somewhat anticlimactic note. After the funeral, there was nothing particularly special. The people in the tribe had dinner early, and as dusk fell, they all retreated into their earthen huts...

Some people fell asleep plainly in the gloomy night, while others tossed and turned, unable to sleep due to the unresolved grief from the day's events.

Xia Chuan and Shen Lan lay on the bed with their arms pillowed under their heads, also unable to fall asleep for a long time, but it had nothing to do with grief.

"The day we arrived, the weather was like this, cloudy for several days without any rain." Xia Chuan gazed out through the hole that could barely be called a window, the grayish-black night sky filled with rolling thick clouds, looking extremely gloomy. He always felt that the sky couldn't hold on like this anymore. If not tonight, then tomorrow, there would surely be a heavy downpour.

But the earthen huts they were living in didn't look like they could withstand a rainstorm. To be precise, with this kind of earthen hut structure, it was completely unsuitable to be built in a place with such a humid climate and frequent wind and rain.

He had heard Laura say the other day that this tribe originally lived in a place with a hot and dry climate, originally residing by a wide river. Later, that river became shallower and narrower, and a while ago it directly dried up into a stream. Only then did they migrate along the direction of the water flow, all the way to the southeast, moving to this place.

Shen Lan was also squinting at the window. Hearing Xia Chuan's words, he gave an "Mm", then frowned and said, "I always feel like something will happen tonight."

Having lived in an uninhabited world for a long time, many of his habits had become animalistic, and he always had a beast-like intuition for danger. Today's peace in the latter half, in his eyes, was like the calm before a storm, floating on the surface in a false manner.

However, most dangers in his eyes were not difficult to deal with, at most just a bit annoying with all the running around. So he just turned over, hugged Xia Chuan's waist, rubbed his nose against Xia Chuan's neck, and said lazily, "Let's sleep. If you don't want to sleep, I—"

Xia Chuan's eyes moved. Thinking about this broken hut with no soundproofing whatsoever, he closed his eyes and resolutely said, "Sleep."

Shen Lan: "..."

Shen Lan's intuition was indeed correct.

Close to midnight, the light-sleeping Xia Chuan felt the hand on his waist move. He suddenly opened his eyes, the sleepiness in them dissipating completely in an instant.

"What is it?" He asked in a low, slightly hoarse voice, turning his head.

Shen Lan, behind him, put a finger to his lips, listened for a few seconds, then flipped over and sat up in one smooth motion. "There's movement!"

The sight of the corpses attacked by wild beasts during the day was still vivid in their minds. To the point that when the two sensed the abnormality, they almost unhesitatingly stood up and exited the door one after the other.

The two moved extremely fast and light at night, silently sliding to the edge of the wall.

Shen Lan tilted his head to discern the direction, and after listening for two seconds, he frowned slightly. He had originally planned to solve the trouble with just Xia Chuan, as more people would be a hindrance. But the sounds he heard had already dispersed, and most importantly, there were quite a few of them.

He gestured to Xia Chuan, then flipped onto a nearby watchtower.

"Ah!" The night watchman on the tower was startled by the sudden figure and instinctively attacked, but was blocked by Shen Lan.

The one keeping watch on the tower tonight was no longer Aegon, but a somewhat unfamiliar man who looked a bit honest and sincere. Like the others in charge of night watch, he also had injuries and couldn't participate in the daily hunting, so he was temporarily assigned to stay in the watchtower.

Due to the language barrier, Shen Lan was a bit troubled. Fortunately, the man remembered Shen Lan's face. Upon seeing who it was, he withdrew his hand and looked at him in confusion. Shen Lan simply didn't bother with words. He patted the man's shoulder and pointed in several directions, then made a ferocious expression, curling his fingers and shaking them.

The man instantly understood his meaning. He responded with a couple of "Ow ow" sounds, then turned and started whistling towards the inside of the walled city.

Shen Lan didn't waste any more words with him. He directly flipped out of the watchtower, landing in two moves, and stood together with Xia Chuan who had climbed out of the wall.

To be honest, the place this tribe had chosen had advantages for the defenders. But when they became the actively attacking side, it was a bit too easy to expose their targets.

Shen Lan had no patience to slowly tangle with those things, going back and forth. He was always used to catching them all at once and directly solving the problem to avoid being constantly harassed.

He and Xia Chuan specifically chose places with heavy and dark night colors to walk. To ordinary people, the movements of the two were so small that they were almost unnoticeable. But to beasts with extremely keen senses and high alertness, it was not impossible to detect.

So when they were about to approach a certain direction, Shen Lan heard the things ambushing there scatter in all directions, no longer in their original positions.

"Annoying as hell..." Since hiding their movements was useless, Shen Lan cursed in a low voice. His speed suddenly increased, and he gestured to Xia Chuan. The two very tacitly split up, one circling around each side, directly launching a pincer attack.

Xia Chuan took out a dagger from his waist, his fingers moving nimbly and dexterously. He quickly ran into the dispersed beasts, four of them in this encounter.

The eyes of those beasts appeared ghostly in the gloomy night, their exposed fangs gleaming with a chilling whiteness, as if biting down and casually tearing could rip off a large piece of flesh. However, Xia Chuan's expression didn't change in the slightest. His reaction was extremely fast. Almost the instant he saw the beasts, he had already calculated the distance and the killing route in his mind.

He charged straight at the one on the right, taking the opportunity to dodge the attacks of the other three coming at him.

In the moments before pouncing on the beast, he sidestepped, dodging the snapping fangs. With a swift extension of his long arm, he encircled the beast's neck, grasping the soft skin and forcing it to expose its throat. Before the beast's claws could scratch his arm, the cold glint of the dagger's blade had already found its mark, pressing against the beast's throat. Without hesitation, he sliced.

Hot, foul-smelling blood sprayed out, splattering the other three charging beasts.

Xia Chuan tossed the lifeless beast in his hands towards the other three, blocking their attack. He then executed two consecutive rolls on the spot, cleverly maneuvering behind the three beasts, turning the tables from defense to offense.

The three beasts were clearly enraged, emitting heavy growls from their throats.

They spun around abruptly, their maws filled with sharp teeth opened to the extreme. At the same time, their razor-sharp claws swiped at Xia Chuan's shoulder with incredible speed. Although Xia Chuan attempted to dodge, his shirt was still torn, leaving a gash. Fortunately, his flesh remained unscathed.

The three beasts, having failed their strike, quickly changed positions, forming a surrounding formation. Xia Chuan leaped directly, vaulting over one that was attacking with an arched back. As he rolled on the ground, the dagger in his hand sliced the belly of another.

Two howls of pain from the beasts rang out simultaneously.

One came from beside Xia Chuan, while the other originated from a short distance ahead, clearly caused by Shen Lan's actions.

These two howls of agony from the beasts stood out starkly in the overly quiet night, instantly shattering the superficial tranquility, like the opening of a prelude, immediately triggering other commotions—

In other positions that Shen Lan and Xia Chuan could not attend to for the time being, nearly twenty beast silhouettes burst forth from the tall grass, like dozens of arrow shadows. In the thick night, they charged towards the walls atop the slope.

These beasts possessed a startling leaping ability. They easily scaled the walls higher than a person's height with just two consecutive jumps, effortlessly.

Although the night watchman on the watchtower blew his whistle and the tribe's residents reacted swiftly, it still took a moment from being startled awake to grabbing weapons and rushing out the door. In that brief instant, the beasts had already leaped over the walls. Their movements were extremely fast, like ghosts flitting between the earthen houses, heading straight for the food storage room with familiarity.

Just today, three of their tribesmen had been buried. After some debate, these wretched beasts came to steal food again at night, brazenly acting in a way that no one could tolerate.

The anger of the tribe's residents instantly ignited to the peak. The disagreements from the day disappeared in this moment. Everyone's thoughts were remarkably unanimous—if these wretched beasts weren't killed, no one would sleep!

However, the hunting methods they usually employed involved quietly surrounding the prey before attacking from a distance, then engaging in close combat. The surrounding companions were all skilled hunters, vastly different from the current situation—there were women, the elderly, and children everywhere.

Although the women here were also exceptionally brave, their skills not inferior to many men, and even surpassing them in agility, there were still differences in physique and strength. The men did not wish for their wives and sisters to face such danger head-on, as it was far too easy to get injured.

Thus, their skills could not be fully utilized within these walls with scattered earthen houses. The situation was instead advantageous for those cunning and agile beasts.

In an instant, screams and roars erupted within the walls, footsteps chaotic and torchlight flickering.

Those nearly twenty beasts scurried around the earthen houses, their movements elusive. At times, they dragged food from the storage room; at others, they moved back and forth to disrupt people's vision. For a while, the people couldn't figure out what their purpose was, only focusing on continuous attacks, defense, rescuing others, and being rescued.

After several minutes of high-speed battle, many in the tribe were injured. The severe cases involved loss of life, while the less severe still had large chunks of flesh torn from legs and feet, or half a finger bitten off. The lighter injuries were covered in scratches, blood flowing.

Those beasts were not unscathed either. Many were wounded, but compared to the tribe's people, those were merely superficial injuries, not a significant loss.

The people discussed anxiously and angrily, speculating on the beasts' objectives while defending against their attacks—

They didn't seem to be here simply for food, because as soon as they got close to people, they immediately dropped the food from their mouths and quickly scurried away. Nor did they seem to be here to injure or eat people... it was more like they were here to cause trouble!

Finally, the tribesmen gained some insight through the entangled battles, and several encirclements were quite accurate. Those beasts seemed to sense the pressure. During one encirclement, they turned and headed straight for the walls, leaping up and over in two bounds. Once one was out, the others followed. In the blink of an eye, those beasts had rushed ten meters away.

The tribesmen clung to the walls, shouting and yelling to scare those beasts.

They thought they had weathered the crisis, but unexpectedly, when those beasts ran about ten meters away, they suddenly stopped, looked back for a few seconds, and in the moment the tribe let their guard down, they swooped back in with a whoosh.

The tribespeople's eyes flashed grimly, caught off guard by this sudden pounce.

After several such back-and-forth movements, they finally felt the anger of being played. The beasts would come in to stir up trouble, and when they were about to be caught, they'd dash out. The moment there was a slight relaxation and peace, they'd leap back in. After a few rounds, the anger of being toyed with by the beasts reached its peak. Even the usually steady group leader had a gloomy face, looking extremely irritated.

During the fight, he swept his gaze over the situation and finally whistled and shouted something. Everyone nodded, then started fighting with renewed vigor. Like before, when the beasts saw the situation turning unfavorable, they turned and dashed out of the walls, heading straight down the slope.

However, this time, after receiving the leader's instructions, the people did not retreat. Instead, they rushed out from the front and rear doors, relentlessly pursuing the retreating backs of the dispersing beasts. In groups of three, they chased all the way down the slope.

They chased from inside the walls to outside, with the intention of killing the beasts even if they had to pursue to the ends of the earth. Meanwhile, the situation Shen Lan and Xia Chuan encountered was equally tricky...