21. Hell Island

Ran gasped! How could he get out of the life-or-death situation? The onslaught of the deadly black waves drew nearer while he was on a large tree that was quite tall. To jump was to die. So stayed still?

The first bat arrived quickly. Ran could see its terrifying mouth open wide. Showing long and sharp fangs. Ran closed his eyes. This was it! It was his time to go.

Just a few inches before the fangs bit Ran, suddenly the bat made a sharp turn in its flight. Dodging hastily so as not to come into contact with Ran's skin. So did the bats behind it. The flying formation of the bats was shattered. Some of them collided.

But the chaotic situation was short-lived. After that, hundreds of flesh-eating bats just circled around the tree where Ran was huddled waiting for his death. The bats kept on spinning while emitting a threatening hum. They wanted to fed on Ran but the scent of his body prevented them from doing so.

Ran was sniffing his arm and back of his hand in surprise. He could smell a sharp odor all over his body. Aha, here it is! The scent of the crushed leaves of this tree had prevented the predatory bats from approaching him. Amazing!

With excitement, Ran repeated his actions earlier. He took a few leaves, squeezed them, then rubbed them on the exposed parts of his body. He even covered his shirt and pants. While doing it, Ran felt something drop on to his pants from above. Probably from the tree canopy. He saw a Siafu ant the size of a toe crawling on his pants, it stopped moving and then squirmed violently, dead.

Ran understood completely now. Apparently the leaf extract had a lethal effect. But why was he okay?

Ran wasn't aware that he had been hiding in one of only seven rare trees planted in the whole world. The tree was named as the Tree of Life and Death by whoever discovered this in the past. This rare tree would not be more than seven. Each time one of them died, a new seedling would grow.

The leaves of the tree had two opposite properties at once. Very useful as an anti-toxin to humans and very deadly to other animals and plants. That was why this tree only grew alone. Not in the same ecosystem with the other plants.

How this rare tree originally grew on this strange island, no one knew. But why there were only seven trees in the world, there was a special scientific-metaphysical reason.

The tree was both venomous and antivenom. If the population was numerous and could be commercialized in the massive amount, it was feared the world would reach doomsday too fast because human nature was generally greedy and yet unable to control themselves. Imagine a great anti-venom combined with a super evil poison and then controlled by irresponsible people.

But Ran didn't care about any of those things. For him the most important thing was that he was safe for now. He stayed put.

He plucked a few more leaves to put in his bag for the trip the next day which he knew would be very dangerous.

Still, although he knew the bats wouldn't sink their teeth in him, Ran couldn't sleep. He just put his muscles to relax. He tried meditation. Ran knew, as soon as the dawn broke, the bats would be all gone.

Most of Cindy's consciousness was actually still awake. Only a little was under the influence of the program chip that Sandra installed in her head.

Even though she could control her brain completely, Cindy decided not to rebel against Sandra's orders. She wanted to experience being in the inner circle of those crazy researchers and the insane giant company that invested in them. Cindy wanted to investigate further and, at the same time, shifted their attention from her friends so they were no longer being chased and harassed.

After all, there was one thing that made Cindy confident. Ever since the terrifying transformation process she went through on the ship the other day during the fight against the Angel of Death, she had somehow begun to successfully control her power.

Sandra wasn't aware of this. She was just too happy to be able to use Cindy and control her brain through the computer chip she implanted in Cindy's head. So far, their experiments have never been successful in creating the Death Squad. And Cindy was absolutely perfect! What happened to her occurred naturally without the intervention of genetic technology, without any artificial process!

Even the Angel of Death, which was considered the most successful trial so far, was defeated.

Therefore, despite reports from her subordinates that they didn't succeed in capturing Ran and finding the other members of the expedition team, and, instead, she lost two Death Squad members, Sandra didn't really care. She already had a complete prototype!

The fast boat carrying Sandra and Cindy's went on a very elaborate journey for Cindy to observe. They passed through a very calm sea channel where giant rocks towered left and right. After that they went through a rough sea with endless big waves, then they entered a calm sea with many small islands, before finally arriving at a large island hidden among the cluster of small islands surrounding it.

A very secret island. And the most amazing thing was in the middle of the big island stood a strong volcano that wasn't too high but its peak emitted thick smoke, and from a distance Cindy could also see molten lava flowing from the crater down through the deep inlet that was formed naturally to the ocean.

It was an amazing sight when the lava that fell on the sea surface made a loud hissing sound and released white smoke. The lava didn't flow from just one stream. There were different grooves in different places around the island. They created amazing and terrifying maze when seen from the sky. The island seemed to be overgrown with a volcano that erupted eternally.

Cindy felt her heart pounding as the ship began to dock at the sophisticated-looking pier with super tight security. She complied when Sandra gave the code to follow her off the ship.

Sandra waited for Cindy to actually stepped off from the last stair of the ship. Smiling sweetly, she said in a proud yet secretive tone.

"Welcome to Hell Island, Cindy!"

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