The pterodactyl's ambush was like a sudden nightmare; it came quickly and left just as fast.
The trauma it left behind, however, was indelible.
Donald's screams seemed to still echo through the valley, and the pool of blood on the ground, not yet congealed, attracted countless greedy ants.
One dead, one ran away.
The original six-person expedition team was reduced to four in the blink of an eye.
Except for Alice, who remained terrifyingly calm, the remaining three grown men looked as awful as if they had just attended a funeral.
The atmosphere was suffocating; everyone seemed to be carrying a heavy burden, silent and speechless.
But at this moment, Alice couldn't afford to worry about the emotional state of these adults.
The Sun was setting, and if they couldn't find the plane wreckage before dark, this group would likely become dinner for the nocturnal Beasts.
"Follow me closely, don't fall behind."
Alice whispered a reminder.
They were not far from the mist-shrouded valley, and she had to focus all her attention on scouting the path and avoiding danger.
The terrain in this area had become more complex, and the vegetation was more primitive and wild; every step could lead to a fall, and behind every bush could hide a God of Death.
After walking for another half hour and passing through a forest of thorny vines, the view suddenly opened up.
But it was also a dead end.
Everyone stood on the edge of a cliff.
Before them was a bottomless abyss, and the cold mountain wind whistled, blowing from below, making their clothes flap violently as if trying to drag them into the bottomless darkness.
"Alice, are we lost?"
Hughes peeked at the churning mist below, scared into quickly pulling his head back, and asked with a pale face.
"There's… there's no road here."
Alice didn't answer, but silently pointed her finger to the right side of the cliff: "Who said there's no road? Isn't that it?"
Banner, Strange, and Hughes looked in the direction she pointed.
The three of them gasped in unison.
"That's a road? Are you sure that's meant for humans?" Strange's voice changed pitch; those hands, which had never trembled while holding a scalpel, were now tightly gripping his collar.
The path Alice pointed to was a natural ledge carved by millions of years of wind erosion on the nearly vertical, 90-degree cliff face.
This path wound and twisted like a scar embedded in the cliff.
Its widest point was visually estimated to be no more than 50 centimeters, barely enough for one person to stand sideways.
At its narrowest point, it could barely fit half a foot, and the surface was covered with gravel and moss; a single slip would mean certain death.
What was even worse was that this path had no handrails and no protective measures.
To the left was the hard, cold rock wall, and to the right was an abyss that seemed to have no bottom.
"You've walked this path before?" Strange looked at Alice in disbelief. "What were you thinking? Are you crazy?"
"Of course I have."
Alice nodded calmly.
She wouldn't tell them that when she first arrived half a month ago, she had been too careless and was targeted by a hungry cougar.
To escape the pursuit, she was forced into this desperate situation.
At that time, she only had two choices before her.
Either be torn apart by the cougar or jump down.
The instinct to survive led her to discover this path.
She bit the bullet, pressed herself against the wall like a gecko, and inched along that line between life and death for a full hour before escaping alive.
Later, in order to find Water, she even walked back the same way.
"After that time, I swore I would never walk this path again," Alice thought self-deprecatingly, "I didn't expect to have jinxed myself so early; retribution came too quickly."
Strange walked to the ledge, gathered his courage, and took a look down.
God help him, he swore he absolutely did not have a fear of heights.