Chapter 744 - 45: New Discovery_2
With the long whip just released, Pandit’s arm hung down weakly, and the panic in his eyes had yet to dissipate. He lost his senses and fell backward onto the ground.
...
At dawn, the Black Forest became lively for the first time in a long while.
Under the thin morning light, three teams of challengers were successively attacked by stones and led to the same location by Chen Zhou.
To deceive them, Chen Zhou chose a meeting point less than a kilometer away from the supply drop point. This ambiguous distance could give each team of challengers the illusion that they could control the situation.
But in reality, Chen Zhou would wait at the spot directly below the drop point once they all arrived at the same location.
After the supplies fell, Chen Zhou would be the first to make contact with them.
A kilometer, though close, still requires a few minutes to cover on foot, but for someone like Chen Zhou, even ten seconds is enough for him to sprint several hundred meters.
...
The same type of stone, similar attack methods, and similar enticement strategies—
These things easily form a flaw, allowing people to notice that there is a "third party" causing other challengers to clash and then benefiting from it.
But the three teams of challengers who were led to the designated location did not trust each other that much, and the atmosphere around the core area of the Black Forest was already tense. Being able to stay restrained and not fight was rational enough; expecting them to share resources was simply unrealistic.
Moreover, there was the language barrier hindering their communication.
The concurrently "disappeared" group of challengers and new faces also affected everyone’s judgment. Since those two Indians were not seen, the two groups with an impression of the Indians instinctively thought the Indians were meddling.
Guarding against the Indians lurking in the shadows, they were even less likely to initiate a dispute.
As for information about the Black-robed Man, these people were completely unaware due to their late arrival, thinking that only these people should have entered the Black Forest.
Not everyone can patrol the core area within a day, and not everyone has Chen Zhou’s abundant energy and keen perceptive abilities.
...
Hanging the package with the Indians’ survival tools on a tree, Chen Zhou observed the three teams of challengers who had gathered at the same location from afar, waiting for the supply drop to fully descend.
The ideal scenario would be for the three teams of challengers to continue their standoff until the supplies hit the ground.
But the likelihood of such a scenario occurring was extremely low.
As the Indians were killed and they hadn’t seen the Indians, they would surely think the Indians were heading towards the core area, possibly attributing the stone toss attack to the Indians.
The effect of the "disappeared third party" gathered with everyone was completely different.
The standoff now could only last until the supplies were about to land; at that point, they would rather work side by side than continue maintaining a scenario like the clashing of clams and snipe.
Unless an unexpected event occurs during the waiting period, causing the three teams of challengers to want to determine a final winner early, the situation isn’t actually favorable for Chen Zhou.
...
Approaching noon, three campfires had been lit outside the core area, and the challengers had clearly brought enough food—
Once the final showdown begins, they can no longer leave the Black Forest to hunt prey on the grasslands; preparing food for the coming days in advance is something every challenger would do.
Only a minority of challengers have cooking utensils, and most are using fire to grill their food.
As the meat cooked, all three intensely opposing groups of challengers made unified arrangements—
One challenger eats while another keeps watch. After one finishes eating, they switch roles.
They must ensure they can always observe their opponent’s every move, which provides them with sufficient security.
...
Unlike challengers who eat cooked food, Chen Zhou could only sit on a tree branch, smelling the aroma of cooked food, silently gulping down the already cold meat broth.
Placed for too long, the fat in the broth had already coagulated, varying between tasting sour water and small bits of oil as he drank.
This food was naturally not delicious, but the most torturous thing for Chen Zhou was his exhausted spirit.
He hadn’t slept for over 36 hours.
If it were a normal person, they would experience elevated blood pressure, increased heart burden, sluggish brain reactions, and frequent "micro-sleep" phenomena—unconscious sleep lasting more than 30 seconds, where the brain temporarily shuts down, ceasing management of various body functions.
Due to his strong physical constitution, these abnormal phenomena had yet to manifest in Chen Zhou, but the fatigue from lack of sleep could not be avoided.
Glancing one more time at the three groups of challengers, Chen Zhou inevitably looked up at the beacon still hanging in mid-air.
"When will you finally drop?"
Thinking like this, he suddenly squinted his eyes—
Under the dazzling light of the beacon, a small black dot appeared.
The descent speed of this black dot was synchronized with the beacon, but upon closer inspection, it could be seen that it was at least thirty to fifty meters away from the shining beacon.
Which means, if this black dot was the supply, it would land at least thirty seconds earlier than people perceived.
Rubbing his eyes, initially, Chen Zhou thought he was seeing things due to lack of sleep, but upon further confirmation, he realized he wasn’t hallucinating. Indeed, there was a square-shaped object hanging directly below the beacon.