The woman's gaze was so terrifying that the man, who had been full of arrogance, trembled.
His hands, raised high, did not land on the woman's face.
He raised them high, only to lower them dejectedly.
The woman held her child, and countless other women stepped forward, walking behind her.
The children who had once looked down on their mothers, their young worlds collapsing and rebuilding in an instant.
The fathers they had once revered as gods and heroes suddenly seemed less imposing in their hearts.
The mothers who had endured beatings and persecution now stood like towering mountains, protecting them.
They finally understood that the mother they had always dismissed, the one who cowered in the corner,
Was the true hero of this moment.
After Xu An finished dealing with the aftermath of the octopus monster, she and Qin Chuan converged towards Zhou Haimei's direction.
What they saw was the scene before them.
A scene that moved everyone.
She walked to Zhou Haimei's side, about to ask what was happening when,
At that moment, amidst the flames, a turn of events occurred.
Perhaps even heaven wanted them to die here.
Sudden rain began to fall into the raging fire, melting into droplets of water.
They landed on the octopus monster's skin,
Dispelling its momentary heat.
Xu An was the first to notice the fire diminishing, but looking at the motionless octopus monster within the inferno,
Almost everyone's heart seemed to hang in suspension.
A question arose in everyone's mind.
It's still not dead?
But sometimes, facts are just that cruel, like the last straw that breaks the camel's back.
When everyone discovered that the octopus monster had not been burned to death, only its surface was slightly charred, their faces fell.
It was like a hell on earth, with spirits wailing.
Xu An could no longer comfort others; all she could do was steady her own emotions.
After a few seconds of composure, she poured the gasoline she held towards the outer edge of the fire ring.
Judging by the current situation,
Even if the fire couldn't kill the octopus monster, it could at least serve as a check.
Xu An could only place her hope on the arrival of the lighthouse's rescue.
As she charged towards the fire ring, Xu An glanced back at Qin Chuan, standing not far away.
She made a gesture of fiddling with her watch, and Qin Chuan immediately understood.
But he still shook his head at Xu An helplessly.
They both understood the implication: whether rescue could arrive before the fire ring was extinguished.
At this point, the men who had been confronting and criticizing their wives for wasting resources also joined the women's actions.
The strong ones even brought the firewood they had saved for winter and piled it into the fire ring.
In this moment, no one cared about wasting resources or being called extravagant.
They all knew that this fire was merely a desperate attempt to prolong their lives.
But in this moment, everyone wanted to live, even if only for one more second.
So, people desperately and spontaneously maintained the fire.
No one fled.
Because the people living here knew better than Qin Chuan and the others what kind of place they were in.
This mountain hollow, and they had no vehicles.
If they ran away now, when the fire died down, death would still await them.
No one dislikes their homeland; these people were no different.
It was highly likely they had never considered leaving this place.
Qin Chuan and Zhou Haimei were not idle either; they followed Xu An, helping along the way.
Even though they knew it was futile,
No one gave up.
As everyone repeated their mechanical actions, the octopus monster seemed to have regained its senses.
Suddenly, it went berserk.
It nearly broke through the encirclement and charged towards Xu An and the others.
At the critical moment, Qin Chuan was the first to pull Xu An back, thus avoiding the octopus monster's attack.
However, the monster's movement trajectory seemed not aimed at attacking Xu An, but at using the opportunity to force Xu An back.
The massive tentacle, after seeing Xu An being pulled away, landed on the spot where Xu An had been standing.
The next second, the smell of scorched flesh wafted, subtly mixed with a hint of the salty sea breeze.
But the consequence of being burned was immense.
As the tentacle fell, the intact fire ring was as if ripped apart.
A gap appeared out of nowhere.
It was this gap that caused the once vigorous fire ring to gradually weaken.
The next second,
The terrifying event finally happened.
Although a large portion of the fire ring still surrounded the octopus monster, its tentacles could now move freely.
In an instant, the thick tentacle stretched out, encircling the crowd, as if randomly selecting its lunch.
Screams from the crowd intensified.
Everyone was fleeing desperately.
Xu An looked at the behemoth before her.
At this moment, nothing was more poignant than the despair she felt.
The monster before her was like an unconquerable mountain, or an uncrossable river.
Just then, the octopus monster seemed to have figured out who posed the greatest threat to it.
Instead of grabbing the fleeing humans, it used its unique sense of smell to precisely locate Xu An and the other two.
And it predicted their movements based on their actions.
Zhou Haimei's stamina was originally inferior to Xu An's.
But in front of the monster, they clearly wouldn't show any favoritism due to Zhou Haimei's current physical condition being worse than Xu An's.
The octopus monster wasn't just a single tentacle.
If one wasn't enough, then two; if two weren't enough, then four.
The octopus monster had somehow learned the tactic of human wave warfare.
It showed no mercy towards Xu An and the others, only aiming to crush them into a pulp.
When Xu An was once again slammed to the ground by a tentacle, she understood how insignificant human strength was in the natural world.
Her gun was almost out of ammunition.
Although she had countless supplies in her spatial storage, enough to live out her next life,
At this moment, she clearly felt the helplessness that came with life approaching its end.
When she was heavily thrown into the snow once more,
She even had a moment of distraction, thinking it was good that it was snowing.
The snow beneath her acted like a soft cushion, supporting Xu An's body,
So that the octopus monster's attack did not cause too much damage.
The three of them, at this moment, were like the captive lions, tigers, and elephants in a circus.
Possessing the power to dominate their territory, being fierce beasts, yet now, because of the octopus monster,
They were trapped in this "circus."