Chapter 187: A Black Ruin, Stretching Endlessly!
Su Ran really didn’t expect that the beastmen also knew how to dig a firebreak!
At this time, she was standing at a place three kilometers outside the periphery of the ignition point, watching the beastmen digging soil together, preparing to dig out a firebreak at least fifty meters wide.
On the way over, Su Ran had already observed the fire situation inside the forest ahead.
The fire had burned over from a woods where the trees were originally relatively sparse. Because there were more rotten branches and leaves inside the woods, and more water stored inside the tree trunks, the fire was not burning very fast, but this fire should have been burning for some time, so the burned area was already very large.
From what Su Ran could see at this time, the foremost position of the fire circle was already one kilometer long, and the places that couldn’t be seen, who knew how much had burned!
But what shocked her was that the beastmen’s digging speed was even faster than the current speed of the fire!
The previous second it was still flat ground overgrown with weeds, but in just one minute, it had been dug by the beastmen into a deep pit half a meter deep!
Then in just a few short minutes, a one-meter-high soil pile was heaped up at the edge of the pit, like a soil wall, standing in front of the dug firebreak.
Although Su Ran had seen beastmen digging soil before, because it wasn’t an emergency situation, the beastmen’s digging speed was not slow, but still within the range of normal speed.
Sometimes they even used the tools that Su Ran made. In Hui’s words, it was to avoid getting soil inside their nails, which was very hard to clean.
But at this time, Su Ran watched the firebreak rapidly expanding in area at a speed visible to the naked eye, and found that even after so much time had passed, she still hadn’t fully understood the true nature of these beastmen!
The beastmen in the settlement now, including the newly born little infants, totaled around one hundred fifty.
Now, except for those little ones who were still too young, all the other beastmen had already run over.
No one organized the matter of the beastmen digging the firebreak, and no one arranged what to do, but they all tacitly understood and quickly found their own positions in this hasty chaos.
Su Ran didn’t go dig soil.
Because even though her current strength was much faster than before when doing these heavy labor tasks, compared to the beastmen at this time, her meager results were simply holding the beastmen back!
She could only follow those ten-or-so-year-old little ones to clean up all the weeds and shrubs on the surrounding ground.
And the huge trees growing around here also quickly fell one by one under the beastmen’s sharp claws.
This area was soon cleared into a large open space.
The beastmen continued from the already cleared open space, following the direction of the fire spread, clearing all the way to both sides.
Four hours later, a curved firebreak nearly two kilometers long, with a half-meter deep slope, was clearly visible.
And at this time, the foremost fire line was only seven or eight hundred meters away from the firebreak side!
Su Ran could even feel the temperature in the surrounding air rapidly rising!
“Ran Ran.”
Hui, who didn’t know where he had come back from, suddenly landed behind Su Ran.
Su Ran was using the saw blade on the multi-tool axe to saw a shrub that had already grown to arm thick. Hui saw it and directly bent down, found the root of the shrub, his shoulder muscles bulged, and with one pull, he uprooted the shrub that was over one person tall.
He threw the shrub to the side, lowered his head to look at Su Ran, and seeing the worried expression on Su Ran’s face, he leaned down and rubbed her nose tip: “Don’t be afraid, the fire is about to end, it will rain soon~”
Rain?
Su Ran was stunned and quickly looked up at the sky overhead.
Sure enough, she didn’t know when, but the sky was already overcast with dense clouds. Because the smoke from the big fire inside the woods had already started to spread over, Su Ran hadn’t noticed for a moment that the weather had changed!
And looking at this situation, this rain was probably not small.
“Hui, did you know it was going to rain long ago?”
Su Ran looked at Hui strangely, feeling like she had overlooked a lot of things.
From the moment she saw this big fire, the beastmen didn’t seem particularly worried.
“I knew, it was too hot today, it will rain~”
Hui meant that it had been that muggy weather since the morning.
Su Ran hadn’t paid much attention at the time and thought it was because late summer was approaching and the temperature had risen!
Thinking about it now, it was indeed the sultry heat before a heavy rain, oppressive and making one feel restless.
But no matter what, she still unconsciously breathed a sigh of relief.
Su Ran found a felled tree and sat down leaning against its tall tree trunk. After continuously sawing shrubs for four hours, she now felt her hands and feet weak.
Hui saw it from the side, walked over and squatted in front of her, raised his hand to touch the top of her head: “Ran Ran, go back?”
Su Ran looked up at him, just about to refuse, since the other beastmen here were still busy.
But the words of refusal were just about to come out when she paused, then nodded again.
The time now was almost six in the afternoon, she and Hui now both had the dietary habit of three meals a day, and with so much exercise this afternoon, Hui was probably hungry too.
Her role here wasn’t much, so it was better to go back early and make dinner for Hui.
However, before going back, she still needed to check the fire situation ahead once more to feel at ease.
Hui soon took Su Ran and flew up, and in just this short while, the foremost part of the fire line had advanced nearly one hundred meters further.
Thick smoke rose to the sky, and many beastmen with sensitive sense of smell could no longer endure the intense smoke smell and had to continuously retreat further back.
Hui was also very uncomfortable. He first flew back a bit farther with Su Ran, then ascended a little higher, letting Su Ran clearly see the fire situation ahead.
This fire had spread over in an arc shape, and at this time Su Ran finally saw the full view of the area behind the thick smoke that had been burned by the fire.
The farthest end of the burned area that could be seen was at least six or seven kilometers away, because to the naked eye, it was a piece of black ruins with no end in sight!
And the foremost fire line now burning toward the settlement side had also extended from just one kilometer long at the start to about three kilometers.
However, even so, it was still under the beastmen’s deliberate control that it could be contained.
But it was only controlled on this side; the fire spreading in the other directions had not been managed by the beastmen.
Because there was no energy left to manage it.
For everyone, being able to intercept the fire and prevent it from burning into the settlement was already the only thing the beastmen could do.
Otherwise, they would have to leave their old home like the beastmen who had newly moved into the settlement, go to new soil, and build a new homeland.
