One of the two ogres carried a Remington M870 shotgun and brandished a machete to clear the way in front, and the other followed behind with a roll of barbed wire and a wire crossbow, they seemed to be arguing over something, and from time to time they pushed each other.

Seeing that she was about to walk in front of her, Jessie suddenly stood up from the bushes, and the ogre who was following behind heard the movement and subconsciously looked at her.

The next moment, the crossbow in Jessie's hand was activated, and a crossbow arrow shot into the cheek of the ogre closest to her.

The heavy tungsten steel arrowhead carried a huge amount of kinetic energy, easily penetrating the facial bones, shattering the cerebellum and brainstem, and then unabated, piercing through the back of the skull until most of the shaft was exposed.

The corpse slammed to the ground, and the other ogre let out a roar, brandishing his machete and about to pounce on Jessie.

“piu”

WITH A SOFT THUD, THE 7.5MM AIR TIP BULLET ERUPTED WITH A POWER THAT WAS EXTREMELY INCOMMENSURATE WITH THE SOUND IT PRODUCED, FORMING A HUGE CAVITY IN ITS ABDOMEN AND SHATTERING ITS SPINE.

The ogre had his nerves severed in the lower half of his body, his legs went limp, and he fell to the ground, but he did not die immediately, and he was still struggling to prop up his upper body, trying to attack those who approached it with the machete in his hand.

It was fierce enough, and Jack stepped forward and stepped on its knife-wielding right hand.

"Hey, can you understand me?"

He was responded to only muffled swearing, which he didn't understand at all.

"I can't communicate." He reached out and asked Jessie for the saber, stabbing the ogre in the back of the neck, severing its medulla oblongata.

Seeing that the thing was not breathing without saying a word, Jack wiped the saber back and forth on the guy's dirty coat and handed it back to Jessie.

Kicking the two corpses over, enduring the stench and strong visual impact, he roughly examined them,

The good news is that these creatures are indeed human, not otherworldly.

I don't know if it's caused by environmental factors, inbreeding, or both, but these animals generally have congenital malformations such as cleft lip and palate, ear deformities, facial clefts, and widening of the eye distance.

When I lifted my clothes, I could see that there were various hemangiomas on my body, and the bones were abnormally developed, covered with pustules and skin growths produced after the pustules healed.

The bad news is that these creatures all seem to have inherited some degree of pain loss, or insensitivity to pain, with large and small scars all over their bodies, and they don't know how they survived to adulthood.

It's no wonder that a few of them escaped after being shot and fled back like no one else, but Jack estimated that those would not survive, and without special surgery, blood loss and infection alone would kill them.

Watching him inspect the two corpses, Jessie on the side turned pale, her body shook and she was a little shaky, and hurriedly held on to the tree trunk on the side.

"What kind of monsters are these?"

"A degraded wildling?"

Jack shrugged, the North American continent is sparsely populated, the people are brilliant, the train derails at every turn, the chemical pollution, and the government of the beautiful country has a tradition of conducting radiation tests and biochemical tests on its own people, it is not surprising that this kind of thing appears.

"Hurry up, we still have a long way to go."

Jack grabbed the barrel of the Remington M870, smashed it directly on the ground, and used a dogleg knife to cut the wire crossbow, leaving only a bag of crossbow arrows, and then threw the garbage and the corpse into the bushes on the side, pulling Jessie on.

Although the dirt road was dilapidated, it was still possible to drive, and it only took half an hour to go back and forth from the gas station to the accident site, but it was extremely difficult to walk on the forest trail.

Jessie's physical fitness was quite good, but after two hours of hard trekking, she finally couldn't support it anymore and sat on the ground.

Seeing the familiar river beach reappearing in front of him, Jack took out a bottle of water and two chocolates from his hiking bag on his back.

"Eat something, replenish your strength, we're still two hours until it gets dark, and we've got a long way to go."

Jessie poured half a bottle of water, handed it back to Jack, opened the chocolate wrapper and ate it.

"Do you think we'll be able to find Francis?"

Jack drank the remaining half of the bottle of water in one gulp, looking at the boulder that still had a large blood stain.

"Just look for it along the water source, there are a lot of them, and they will definitely leave traces of a lot of activity nearby, it shouldn't be difficult, it's just"

"I know, I won't cry anymore, if she dies, I just want to kill a few more monsters and avenge her and Evan."

Jessie finished the chocolate in two bites, picked a leaf beside her and wiped her hands, it seemed that the girl was adapting quite quickly.

"It depends, they probably won't kill her right away." Jack spoke his guess.

Seeing her look puzzled, Jack explained again.

"That refrigerator is full, which means that they have had a good harvest recently, and maybe they will raise people for the time being."

Jessie's expression froze, and she didn't know what to say for a while.

Jack carefully sensed his surroundings, made sure there was no movement, and commanded in a low voice.

"I'll go and leave a mark on the stone, you wait for me."

As he spoke, he drew a crossbow bolt he had received from the ogre and walked towards the riverbank.

Evan's body was long gone, but next to the boulder, a large pool of blood was left behind, and there were some scattered fragments of internal organs, which attracted a large number of mosquitoes and flies, and it was estimated that the body was dismembered on the spot and then taken away in pieces.

Jack carefully observed the direction of the blood dripping and made sure that it was going upstream, pointed the arrow of the crossbow arrow upstream, and picked up two small stones to hold it down.

"Let's go, let's hope we find Franco before it gets dark."

Jack returned to Jessie, reached out and pulled her up, leading her up the river along the edge of the river beach and woods.

He didn't go to the river beach because the surroundings were too open, and even with his super perception, there was no guarantee that the two of them would not become live targets.

After another more than an hour of difficult trekking, after climbing several small ridges in a row, Jessie finally couldn't support it, even though the second half of the journey was almost exhausted by Jack's pull.

"How long do you have to go?" She sat on the ground, tapping her sore calves gently.

"It shouldn't be far away, I guess we should be able to find something over this hill." Jack squinted at a faint cloud of smoke rising not far away.

By this time, the sun had gradually set in the west, and the sunset was unusually beautiful, corresponding to the evil and horror hidden in this forest, which seemed extremely ironic.

This time Jack didn't let the girl rest for too long, and after dark there was not only a threat of ogres, but also predators in the forest.

Sure enough, when I climbed the hill in front of me, an open field in the forest appeared at the foot of the mountain, and not far from the river beach was a dilapidated wooden house.

(End of chapter)