Chapter 890: Determination
Through the rising dust cloud in the distance, one could vaguely see a massive trade caravan snaking over slowly. A motorcade of this scale was simply beyond imagination and clearly one that had been formed from a combination of many caravans.
From the perspective of a robber, this was an extremely big fish.
Qianye narrowed his eyes, contemplating what this giant motorcade meant. It was then that he noticed a wisp of icy blue energy through the corner of his eyes.
He turned slightly toward the side. “How come you’re here?”
Li Kuanglan appeared behind Qianye. “As expected, I can’t hide from you. I’m now really curious about your hidden aces.”
“Let’s get to the point.”
Li Kuanglan passed him a letter. “I have a letter for you.”
Qianye inquired as he received the missive, “From whom?”
“Reportedly, it’s from the city lord of Tidehark, Luo Bingfeng. The messenger, Luo Yun, claims to be the steward of the city lord manor. I think he’s telling the truth.”
Qianye didn’t open the letter just yet. Instead, he pointed at the approaching motorcade. “What do you make of that?”
Li Kuanglan shot a glance in the pointed direction and then looked back at Qianye. “You used Heartgrave?”
“Yes, I just killed a champion dressed up as a common soldier.”
Li Kuanglan sneered. “Planning a disguised ambush against you is just courting death.”
“How do you see this situation?” Qianye repeated his question.
Li Kuanglan said calmly, “Simple, you’ve delivered a fierce message and used your killing move. They sent out this caravan knowing that you won’t be able to attack again in a short while. This is a message to you and to the people of Tidehark, a slap to the face if you will.”
The two were chatting amidst the rocky terrain, yet the hunter on the nearby hilltop never noticed. Every time his gaze moved in their direction, he would divert it away subconsciously—it felt like something terrible would happen if he were to look a while longer. He felt inexplicably nervous, but he simply couldn’t figure out his problem. He had even sent two signals to his colleagues that everything was fine.
Meanwhile, Qianye and Li Kuanglan were gazing at the rolling caravan with their hands behind their backs. The lead vehicle had already rushed out of the dust cloud and driven onto the main road at the foot of the mountains. The numerous sentries on its roof were glancing about with their binoculars, but they couldn’t sense anything when their line of sight swept past Qianye and Li Kuanglan.
In their origin-empowered vision, the two of them were just unassuming rocks.
Holding the letter behind his back, Qianye’s fingers tapped on the envelope with increasing frequency.
He said all of a sudden, “How should I tell them that I’m not joking?”
Li Kuanglan was startled as she had never thought about this. “No idea.”
Qianye’s tapping finger came to an abrupt stop. “It’s actually quite simple, I just need to plunder this caravan. Now!”
With a bang, that envelope turned into a cloud of shredded paper. Qianye never even opened it from the beginning, up until the end.
Qianye’s figure vanished!
Li Kuanglan subconsciously reached out to grasp Cold Moon’s embrace. She hadn’t even drawn her blade when she felt a prick on her face, which developed into a red spot, and then to a drop of seeping blood.
This was a wisp of origin power that Qianye had left behind, and even Li Kuanglan had no idea when he had released it. The meaning, however, was clear—he didn’t want Li Kuanglan to interfere.
The first car of the motorcade rose up all of a sudden and was flipped away to the side. It rolled several times before falling into a ditch by the road. Things happened so fast that the soldiers in the truck had no time to react or get off. Most of them tumbled about and lost consciousness inside the compartment.
Qianye walked on through the cars like he was taking a stroll. Every time there was a car driving toward him, he would send it off the road with a light flick of his sword. Be it soldiers or workers, all the passengers were tossed about in great disarray. In the blink of an eye, the dozen or so cars at the van of the motorcade had been flipped over. The vehicles also descended into chaos as they braked hurriedly.
The soldiers started to react soon afterward, aiming their weapons at Qianye. A number of nervous greenhorns began firing before the officer had issued the order. The frontline officer’s “hold your fire” was still echoing in the air when gunshots rang out, and a hail of bullets rained down on Qianye!
The latter’s expression turned cold as his silhouette flickered and reappeared near an armored vehicle, East Peak cutting into its engine like a hot knife through butter.
Following a loud rumble and a cloud of steam, the engine erupted in a spray of flaming engine parts and deformed steel plates. The vehicle was blasted apart and the goods began burning fiercely. The soldiers standing atop the car were sent flying and died as they crashed back onto the ground.
Qianye’s figure flashed constantly as he advanced against the flow, turning one car after the other in his wake into balls of fire. In a flash, the merchant companies who had taken part in this operation had suffered great losses.
At this moment, the generals under the vice-commander were still quite a distance away. They were startled when the commotion broke out, uncertain who would dare assault a caravan of such scale. According to reason, Qianye should be lying low after firing that shot. The vice-commander wasn’t expecting to actually draw Qianye out when he had ordered the caravan to move out. Experienced hunters would never be so rash as to fall into such an obvious trap.
In just a short while, the front end of this vehicular dragon had turned into a burning serpent of flames. Very soon, a fourth of the trucks had been destroyed! From the speed with which the fires were spreading, one could easily tell that Qianye hadn’t held back at all.
The vice-commander flew up and roared furiously, “How dare you!”
The other generals of the city guard naturally followed suit. A couple more of them appeared from hidden locations and cut off Qianye’s paths of retreat.
They weren’t wrong in trying to surround him, but that further delayed their arrival, during which Qianye had wrecked eight more cars. The entire motorcade had come to a complete stop at this point, and there were people fleeing to either side of this tortuous metallic dragon. Qianye made no effort to kill the people, but the exploding trucks knew neither friend nor foe. Whoever was near the blast would be at risk of losing their lives.
Stopping Qianye wasn’t the responsibility of ordinary soldiers. This business was best left to those high-ranking officers and generals.
Seeing that someone had taken the lead to flee, all the others started swarming over from behind. Thousands of workers and soldiers were soon scattering to the side like ants, much to the ire of the vice-commander.
He spared no expense to further increase his speed. The man soon arrived in front of Qianye like a falling star, hoping to intercept him. Suddenly, the vice-commander felt his body tremble and his flight trajectory deviated obviously to the side. A graceful young noble had just appeared in his sight. This person’s aura was majestic and the aqua blue sword in his hand was mysteriously blue and dazzling.
Li Kuanglan never left her position. It was just that she had unsheathed her sword and was no longer hiding her existence.
The vice-commander was a decisive and ruthless character. He pointed at Li Kuanglan from afar and shouted, “You lot keep an eye on him, the rest come with me. Whoever kills Qianye will score the highest contribution!”
The soldiers on the trucks had already fled at this point, leaving the empty vehicles parked on the main road. Qianye ignored the officers barring his path entirely. He pushed ahead through steel and fire, turning one vehicle after another into blazing spheres.
A fierce general finally lost his calm and pounced at Qianye with a loud roar. The latter, on the other hand, took a step forward and rammed into the incoming enemy! A loud thud echoed as the general was sent flying backward, but East Peak had already stabbed into his chest during that short exchange.
Another general flew over weightlessly and brushed right past Qianye.
The latter experienced a short pause before continuing onward. It was just that a blood wound had appeared below his ribs. That general left swiftly, covering over a hundred meters in the blink of an eye. He collapsed all of a sudden as he was running away, a pool of blood seeping out from under his body.
One after the other, the city guard officers charged at Qianye like fierce beasts and were duly cut down. The burning trucks formed a natural barrier that prevented a joint assault, but the surviving officers were hell-bent on fighting Qianye to the death, enraged by the death of their comrades.
Qianye kept moving forward, leaving corpses, steel, and raging flames in his wake. The wounds on his body increased in number and his aura was also dwindling—only his eyes were as bright and lustrous as before.
The battle at this point had become a contest of perseverance and killing intent, a race to see who would collapse first.
A general had been roaming the periphery of the battlefield, the crosshairs on his large-caliber sniper rifle never leaving Qianye. Finally, just as Qianye’s step faltered, he took advantage of the opening to fire at the target’s back.
The vice-commander who hadn’t yet taken action all this time also found the opportunity he was waiting for. He appeared in front of Qianye in the blink of an eye, thrusting his twin blades at Qianye’s heart.
But at this moment, the vice-commander suddenly noticed his figure being reflected in Qianye’s eyes. Overcome by a wave of dizziness, his dagger drifted downward and stabbed deep into Qianye’s abdomen.
The vice-commander didn’t look delighted at all after having dealt a heavy blow to Qianye. He looked down in astonishment and saw that East Peak had pierced diagonally through his abdomen. Only at this point did he realize that Qianye had been waiting for him all along, waiting to trade blows with him.
Whoever made a move at this point would deal great damage to both parties. The vice-commander didn’t dare to move, but Qianye reached out and grabbed the vice-commander toward him. Their faces were almost touching at this point!
This action injured both components, lacerating their wounds at the same time. During this cruel contest, the desire to live finally suppressed the vice-commander’s will to fight. He released his blades and raised his hands, gesturing that he would surrender.
Qianye stared into those terror-filled eyes and uttered word by word, “Go back and tell them, I won’t leave until they release Song Zining!”
Qianye whipped East Peak out and left, not sparing the grounded vice-commander a second glance.
Blood dripped down from his sword, leaving a long trail of scarlet on the ground.