radicalducati Chapter 330: Waiting
Chapter 330: Waiting
A nearly inaudible THUD.
A small hole blew open in the back of the lead Werewolf Warrior’s head. Its body went rigid and fell straight down.
In almost the same instant, Liu Yue moved.
She sprang forward like an agile cat, her twin blades crossing in the air to slice through the throats of two Werewolf Warriors.
Before the blood could even spray, she had already turned, her blade plunging into a third werewolf’s heart.
Xu Wuyi charged out at the same time.
He thrust his spear, a dark gold Flame condensing at its tip without emitting any light.
One Spear Thrust pierced a werewolf’s throat. The Flame surged in instantly, incinerating its life force from the inside.
The last Werewolf Warrior finally reacted, opening its mouth to howl.
Xu Wuyi’s second strike arrived.
The spear tip shot into its open mouth and emerged from the back of its head. The Flame erupted, devouring all sound and life.
The battle was over.
From start to finish, it had taken less than three seconds. All six Werewolf Warriors were dead, and no alarm had been raised.
Liu Yue checked the bodies, confirming they were all dead.
Xu Wuyi stepped forward and pressed his right palm on the corpses. The dark gold Undying Flame surged out, covering all six bodies.
With a faint SIZZLE, the bodies dissolved rapidly, turning to ash. Even the bloodstains were incinerated.
The entire process produced no bright light and no thick smoke, only a faint scorched smell that was quickly carried away by the mountain wind.
Liu Yue watched the Flame in Xu Wuyi’s palm, a strange glint in her eyes.
"Clean and efficient," she commented.
Zhou Ming put away his sniper rifle and walked out from his hiding spot. He glanced at where the ashes lay and nodded. "A good cleanup job."
The three of them returned to regroup with Shi Gang and Lin Zhaowen.
Lin Zhaowen watched the heat signatures disappear from his scanner and nodded. "Very clean. No other werewolves in the vicinity."
"Let’s go," Liu Yue said. "We need to hurry."
The squad set off again.
They didn’t encounter any more werewolf patrols on the next leg of the journey, but they were attacked by Star Beasts twice.
Once, it was a swarm of fist-sized poison wasps, which Shi Gang flattened with a shockwave from his shield;
Another time, it was two multi-legged monsters lurking in a swamp, which were dispatched by Zhou Ming’s sniper fire and Liu Yue’s daggers.
Xu Wuyi was responsible for cleaning up the battlefield, and the efficiency of his Undying Flame saved everyone a lot of trouble.
Four hours later, the sky began to darken.
Although the position of the two pale suns hadn’t changed much, the light had clearly grown much dimmer.
The squad arrived at their designated location: the edge of Canyon 7-B.
It was a deep canyon flanked by steep rock faces. A swift, dark river flowed at the bottom.
The canyon stretched for more than five kilometers. It was three hundred meters at its widest point and only fifty meters at its narrowest.
"This is the place." Lin Zhaowen pulled up a topographical map. "Mid-canyon, right here." He pointed to a marked spot on the map. "There are natural caves in the rock face here. They’re perfect for an ambush, and the vantage point is wide open, with a clear view of both ends of the canyon."
Zhou Ming surveyed the terrain, scanning the cliff face with his tactical eyepiece. "The caves are in a good position. I can set up a sniper’s nest."
The five of them descended the rock face to the canyon floor, then climbed back up to the midway point.
As expected, there were several natural caves, their entrances concealed by vines. The space inside was quite large.
Liu Yue inspected the caves, confirming there were no Star Beast nests.
"We’ll rest here tonight," she said. "Lin Zhaowen, set up the perimeter alarms. Shi Gang, you have the first watch. Zhou Ming, the second."
Shi Gang and Zhou Ming nodded.
Lin Zhaowen took several coin-sized devices from his pack and stuck them to the cave entrance and the surrounding rock wall.
They were vibration sensors and heat detectors that would sound an alarm if anything approached.
Xu Wuyi found a spot deeper inside and sat down. He took out high-energy food and water and began to replenish his strength.
Liu Yue sat across from him, polishing her twin blades.
"Your Flame," she said suddenly, "how long can it burn for?"
Xu Wuyi thought for a moment. "Depends on the target. If it’s a regular Werewolf Warrior, it only takes a few seconds to burn them to nothing. If it’s War General Level, it’ll take longer."
"Can it burn through an Energy Shield?"
"Haven’t tried," Xu Wuyi said, shaking his head. "But in theory, as long as the Flame can adhere to it, it should burn. An Energy Shield is just another form of Energy, after all."
Liu Yue nodded and didn’t ask any more questions.
Outside the cave, the sky had grown completely dark.
Three pale violet moons appeared in the dark violet sky, arranged in a triangle, casting down a cold light.
The sound of the dark river rushing through the canyon floor drifted up, along with the occasional roar of a beast in the distance.
Shi Gang sat at the mouth of the cave, his shield propped beside him, vigilantly watching the outside.
Lin Zhaowen was working on his data slate, the light from the screen reflecting on his face.
Zhou Ming leaned against the rock wall with his eyes closed, but Xu Wuyi knew he wasn’t asleep. A sniper’s awareness was higher than anyone’s.
Xu Wuyi also closed his eyes and began to circulate the Hundred Refinements Melting Furnace technique.
His Qi and Blood circulated through his body, and his Spirit sank into his sea of consciousness.
The Mountain Peak Great Sun Realm emerged.
But unlike before, the light of the great sun was more solid this time, and the flow of its Flame was more natural.
Xu Wuyi could feel that every wisp of Flame seemed to have a life of its own, breathing and pulsing.
’Fire is motion.’
This understanding brought his control over the Undying Flame to a new level.
He opened his eyes and his palm.
A wisp of dark gold Flame rose from his palm, burning silently.
The Flame was no longer simply adhering and incinerating; it was like a living thing, flowing and changing with his thoughts.
Xu Wuyi looked out of the cave.
Under the dark violet moonlight, the canyon resembled a slumbering python.
Old Cat had died somewhere in this land. Milo was probably here, too.
And they were here, waiting.
Waiting for the moment to hunt.
And waiting for the moment of revenge.
...
「On the morning of the third day.」
The sky above the canyon was still that same oppressive, dark violet.
The two pale suns rose slowly from behind the mountain range, their light filtering through a thin layer of clouds, draping the canyon in a cold, grayish-white.
Inside the cave, all five of them were awake.
Shi Gang rolled his stiff shoulders. His Alloy Gloves made a faint scraping sound at the knuckles.
He looked out of the cave entrance at the rugged rock faces and vines swaying in the wind.
"It’s the third day," Shi Gang said in a low, slightly anxious voice. "Not even a damn ghost has shown up."
Lin Zhaowen pushed up his glasses, his fingers flying across his data slate.
The heat distribution map on the screen showed only sporadic signs of Low-level Star Beast activity within a five-kilometer radius, with no large-scale Energy signatures from the Werewolf Race.
"The decoy squad’s last signal was thirty-seven hours ago, from a position sixty-five kilometers to the northeast," Lin Zhaowen said calmly.
"Judging by their operational trajectory, they’ve attacked at least three small werewolf outposts, killing over twenty Werewolf Warriors and four War Generals. A provocation of this magnitude should normally be enough to draw Milo’s attention."