The flickering firelight danced against the stone walls, accompanied by the rhythmic scraping of stone against stone.
Twenty hours earlier, inside a cave at the far edge of the Western Jungle.
The silver-haired woman and Tiffany Tang sat by a crackling fire. They each held skewers of wild game the Russian woman had hunted—unseasoned, roasted over an open flame. They ate in silence, occasionally exchanging short, simple words in a broken dialogue that had become their nightly routine.
However, tonight, the topic was different.
"Women?"
The silver-haired woman frowned, seemingly surprised by Tiffany's choice of words. She stopped sharpening her obsidian blade.
Tiffany nodded, trying her best to explain. "That man. Companions. Women. Many."
Over the past few days, Tiffany had adapted to life here. The longer she stayed with the silver-haired woman, the more she understood her. This woman was a warrior. While the word "warrior" might seem jarring when applied to a woman in the modern world, it felt perfectly natural to Tiffany.
Coming from a prestigious family, Tiffany had seen a true female warrior once in her youth—her great-grandmother. Though her memories were hazy—her great-grandmother had passed when Tiffany was only in the third grade—she felt a resonance. Across the river of time, she saw the same gaze in this Russian woman.
Honest, steadfast, and most importantly, possessing a will like tempered steel. It wasn't a belief in a god or an ideology, but an absolute trust in oneself. A conviction that says: I do not regret my actions; I do not retreat from my path.
After hearing the silver-haired woman's fragmented account of the battle in the jungle, a spark of hope ignited in Tiffany's otherwise despondent heart. Tiffany was just a teacher—an ordinary woman with a fragile heart who couldn't protect anyone.
But this woman was different. If it were her, perhaps those girls could be... rescued?
"And?" the silver-haired woman asked with a frown.
Tiffany grew anxious, her mind racing for the right words. "Those women. Survive. Submit. Toys..." The scattered words failed to convey the weight of the situation. Seeing the Russian woman's growing impatience, Tiffany blurted out a more direct term.
"Sex... no. Fuck." Tiffany's thin, refined face turned beet red. Using such a blunt word, even in English, filled her with shame.
"Fuck?" The silver-haired woman paused. The confusion in her pale green eyes cleared. She understood the gist of it: across the forest, a man had gathered a group of women to vent his lust.
"So?" She shook her head, a hint of irritation surfacing. Her expression said it all: What does that have to do with me?
She wanted to kill the man who had insulted her. Whether he enslaved women or lived like a king was none of her business. Tiffany's heart sank, but she pressed on.
"Please. Save them!"
The request was borderline irrational. The silver-haired woman shook her head, kicked out the fire, and walked toward her grass bed in the corner. Tiffany felt a familiar sense of dead silence. As a weakling, being rejected when asking for help was the natural order of things.
But as Tiffany curled up to sleep, a low, gravelly female voice drifted through the darkness.
"I kill him. The women... safe."
Tiffany sat up, stunned. In the shadows, the silver-haired woman lay on her mat, placing her obsidian knife beside her. She turned her back and said no more.
Kill him? Those words echoed in Tiffany's mind. Despite wanting the girls to be saved, she didn't necessarily want Chuck dead. In her ideal world, everyone would help each other and live as equals.
"I'm sorry... forget what I said," Tiffany whispered, lying back down. In the end, she was too weak to change anything.
Pushing through the dense jungle, Chuck was greeted by a vast, open plain.
Technically, it wasn't flat. From his vantage point, the terrain sloped gently from east to west. The winding river from the forest widened as it flowed into a tranquil, mid-sized lake in the distance. The water reflected the setting sun, and groups of wild animals lingered warily at the water's edge to drink.
Further downstream, the lake branched into several shallow streams that meandered toward the coast, forming a small alluvial plain before merging with the turquoise sea.
Chuck took a deep breath. This was the western edge of the island. He had now explored most of the land, leaving only the volcano to the north and the unknown territory beyond it.
He looked around the transition zone where the forest met the plain. Based on his experience with the Redwoods and the Hills, a plain this fertile had to have a "king." Yet, despite his enhanced vision, he saw no predators—only herds of what looked like cattle or deer.
Instead of relaxing, Chuck's brow furrowed. The sparse goats of the Red Stone Hills supported a pack of wolves. This many herbivores... what were they feeding? A cold shiver ran down his spine as he thought of the animals at the top of the food chain—the apex predators that have no natural enemies.
He decided not to press forward into the plain. One step at a time, he told himself. He turned his attention to his surroundings. To his right, the terrain eventually dropped off into steep cliffs. To his left, a low stone wall blocked his view.
Chuck moved toward the stone wall. He had come here to find the silver-haired woman's lair. She had to be living in the gap between the forest and the plain. As he got closer, he saw it: a deep, dark cave at the base of the stone wall.
He froze. On the grassy ground near the entrance were clear patches of charcoal. A campfire.
He moved with absolute silence, his senses dialed to the max. But just as he braced for a fight, a figure emerged from the cave, and a familiar voice made his body turn to stone.
"...Chuck."
It was Tiffany Tang. The woman he had completely put out of his mind, his childhood crush, the woman he thought had died long ago.
His first instinct wasn't joy. It was a cold dread. She's alive? And she's here? His enhanced mind processed the data instantly. Before he could speak, Tiffany's face twisted into an expression of pure terror.
Footsteps rushed from behind. Chuck dove to the side. A obsidian blade hissed through the air where his head had been a second ago.
"Suka Blyat!" a low, angry female voice growled.
Chuck rolled and put distance between them. The silver-haired woman stood there, her obsidian knife gleaming. In her other hand, she held Chuck's own bronze knife. He reached for his belt—empty.
She stole my blade while missing the kill? She's got light fingers.
She didn't press the attack immediately but glared at her unarmed opponent. Chuck realized she had used Tiffany's appearance to distract him. Even with his enhanced reflexes, it had been a close call.
He raised his hands in a gesture of peace. "Can we talk?"
The response was a stream of angry Russian. He didn't understand the words, but "Suka" and "Blyat" featured heavily. Clearly, his "insult" from before was still fresh in her mind.
The misunderstanding had snowballed into a blood feud. There was no more room for negotiation.
The Russian woman gripped her knife and began a slow, predatory advance. Tiffany watched, paralyzed by guilt and confusion.
Then, Chuck moved.