Relying on Qianye’s sudden a.s.sault, the Imperial group rushed out of the encirclement and fled at full speed.
The camp had been surrounded on all sides. If the weakest side was made up of hundreds of four-armed warriors, one could easily imagine how much more there would be on the other sides. How had they not sensed such an acc.u.mulation of four-armed natives?
No one was in the mood to think too deeply into this issue. They were focused on fleeing because any delay would leave them surrounded by the four-armed soldiers, sealing their fate.
Qianye reduced his speed somewhat and fell back to the rear end of the group to keep watch. Wei Potian, on the other hand, was charging at the very front, intent on fleeing for his life. No one had the extra energy to help him, so he could only charge ahead at full speed. He had no time to observe anything else, lest he drags down the entire group.
Song Zining ran alongside Qianye, the flying leaves around him acting as sentries.
Qianye looked back and saw that the four-armed warriors had been left far behind, but the danger in his heart increased instead. “There’s no way they’d let us go like that after ama.s.sing so many people, right?”
Song Zining laughed wryly. He pointed in a certain direction, saying, “Of course, it’s impossible.”
In front of the group, a giant figure was standing up as though it had just awakened from a dream. Even from a great distance, everyone could clearly see that the figure was dozens of meters tall, its arms spread out like a demonic G.o.d. The worst part was the bow it was holding!
“Careful!”
Qianye’s voice hadn’t even trailed off when the giant nocked an arrow and fired!
Despite the ma.s.sive frame, the giant’s movements were as swift as lightning. The entire process was completed in one go, not giving anyone the time to react. The top young geniuses of the Empire only realized when the arrow was about to strike.
This projectile was several meters long and as thick as a person’s thigh, not so far off from the ballista bolts used on Imperial wars.h.i.+ps.
Qianye’s heart sank. Everything produced in the high-gravity region was extremely firm and shockingly heavy. This giant arrow was as heavy as a mountain and moving at such great speed. How was one to block it?
Wei Potian was at the front of the group. Evasion was never his forte, and even if it was, he knew he couldn’t. He simply stood firm and unleashed a loud roar. He was surrounded in a solemn aura as an illusory mountain appeared above him. Immediately afterward, one mountain became two, two mountains became four, and four mountains soon transformed into an entire mountain range around the group.
At the juncture of life and death, Wei Potian managed to squeeze out every bit of his potential. The Thousand Mountains had actually reached a stage of initial success, attaining the realm of a thousand immovable peaks.
Despite that, a single person was nowhere near enough to contend with the heavy arrow fired by a six-armed giant.
The bolt crashed into the projection, immediately shattering the countless mountain peaks. Wei Potian coughed up a mouthful of blood at the same time, but he stood tall and continued to channel his origin power. The shattered mountains in the air broke down into smaller fragments, which then transformed into a pool of yellow sand around the heavy arrow. It was an attempt to borrow the projectile’s incoming momentum to deflect it!
This transformation from firm to soft was extremely clever. Qianye would’ve shouted “good job” if they weren’t in a perilous situation.
The heavy arrow’s direction began to s.h.i.+ft, and it seemed like it would fly horizontally overhead. Ji Tianqing and Li Kuanglan appeared on either side of the giant projectile and gave it a coordinated lift. The giant bolt turned upward and shot diagonally into the night sky.
The two girls sunk into the ground from the recoil and also coughed up blood.
Zhao Yuying was pale from the suppressive might of the arrow, and for a while, she couldn’t even move her arms.
That arrow was aimed at Zhao Yuying. Judging from how powerful that projectile was, it would have probably blasted her to pieces and heavily injured everyone else in the group. Fortunately, Wei Potian had understood the situation and miraculously nullified the most destructive part of the impact. Ji Tianqing and Li Kuanglan had also contributed greatly by guiding the arrow away together.
A single arrow had injured three people. The six-armed giant seemed furious that his arrow had accomplished nothing. With a loud roar, he drew his bow again and made ready to fire.
Wei Potian’s expression s.h.i.+fted drastically. He was in no state to activate Thousand Mountains again. Not to mention a mountain range, he could no longer conjure even a small hill. Ji Tianqing and Li Kuanglan were still struggling to get out of the ground. All three of them would lose their lives if another arrow were to arrive.
It was at this time that a dazzling light lit up close to the giant’s side. Despite being a good distance away, the radiance was so bright that one could hardly look straight at it. Soon afterward, a sanguine light erupted on the six-armed giant’s head, followed by a fountain of spraying blood. Its ma.s.sive body staggered from the impact and almost tripped over. The swaying giant let loose an arrow from the taut bow, which flew above everyone’s heads and into the group of four-armed warriors.
Where the heavy arrow landed, the earth swelled up like a newborn hill and exploded in a shower of grey light!
Hundreds of four-armed warriors were thrown into the air. The pillar of grey radiance tore everyone in its wake, throwing broken limbs and pieces of flesh everywhere.
The six-armed giant’s heavy arrow was just that terrifying.
Only at this moment did the rumbling sound arrive from the front. From behind was the explosion from the giant projectile, and from the front was the rumble of an origin gun. The sound waves arrived slightly later, but it was as majestic as the boundless ocean waves.
The six-armed giant swayed about unsteadily, dropping its weapon and holding its head in furious agony.
Everyone saw how Qianye had appeared beside the giant with Spatial Flash and blasted its forehead with an origin gun.
The power of this weapon was earth-shattering—it was Heartgrave.
The six-armed giant lowered its arms and roared loudly at Qianye, firing a wave of visible runes from its mouth.
There was no way Qianye would dare to meet that attack head-on. He dragged his exhausted body and flashed a thousand meters away.
The runic attack missed its mark and ended up drawing a gulch in the ground, one that was ten meters in width and hundreds of meters long. Even Qianye couldn’t help but feel apprehensive about it.
A deep excavation was visible on the giant’s forehead as it lowered its arms. One could almost see the brain fluid inside as a part of the skull had been blasted away by Qianye’s shot. Judging from the wound, the giant’s skull was over half a meter thick. The skeleton of these monsters from the high-gravity region was even harder than high-grade alloy materials. The defensive prowess of this skullbone was comparable to an Imperial battles.h.i.+p.
The giant went berserk after its attack missed. It turned toward Qianye and waved its arms about, grabbing and smas.h.i.+ng at Qianye with various weapons. The giant couldn’t tell apart the dozens of four-armed natives at its feet, and plowed right through them on his charge toward Qianye.
The four-armed warriors were powerful, but they were immediately crippled by the giant’s swinging weapons. The scene of them being swatted away filled Qianye’s group with dread. Even with his ancient vampire const.i.tution, Qianye could only contend with the four-armed soldiers. There was no way he could take a blow from the giant and survive.
He put away Heartgrave and flashed a thousand meters away.
The six-armed giant stared fixedly at Qianye and started giving chase once more. It traveled several dozen meters with every step and was also extremely swift. The strange runes in its eyes, allowed it to easily lock onto Qianye. The latter would be found out even after a Spatial Flash.
Fortunately, the giant was in great pain and its head wasn’t very clear, only focusing on chasing after Qianye. Otherwise, the latter would be hard-pressed to evade if the six-armed general were to stand still and shoot from a distance using homing techniques.
The current giant had its eyes entirely on Qianye. This was a good opportunity for Ji Tianqing and the others to escape. “I’ll drag him away, you guys run!”
At this moment, Zhao Yuying had just pulled Li Kuanglan and Ji Tianqing out from the ground. “No! We go together if we’re going!”
“Let’s go, Qianye can deal with it.”
Zhao Yuying looked back and saw that it was Song Zining. Livid, she said, “Who would’ve thought you’re so afraid of death? You’d rather escape and leave Qianye behind?”
Song Zining was also angry. He shouted, “Qianye has methods that will take him away! He won’t leave if we don’t. Are you trying to kill everyone here? Idi…”
He held back at the precise moment before the complete words had been spelled out.
Zhao Yuying snorted. She glared at Song Zining and said coldly, “Very well, I’ll remember what you said.”
She looked around and said, “Split up and flee!”
This was what Song Zining had in mind as well. If everyone were to stick together, they would be completely wiped out if they met another six-armed general.
Everyone was decisive. Without any unnecessary words, they all picked their respective directions and ran.
Wei Potian instinctively picked a direction close to Zhao Yuying’s. He hadn’t taken many steps when he heard a voice from behind, “Come with me!”
“Okay.” Wei Potian switched directions to meet up with Zhao Yuying. “Weren’t we supposed to split up?”
“Idiot! You can’t fight, and you can’t flee, either. Are you trying to get yourself killed by not sticking to me?” While speaking, Zhao Yuying put an arm around Wei Potian’s waist and hoisted him forward, soon disappearing into the distance.
Qianye kept the six-armed giant’s attention on himself, evading several attacks in the nick of time. Finally, he managed to hold out until everyone was gone from sight.
This six-armed giant’s vitality was extremely powerful. Even with a piece of its skull missing, it was still very much well and alive. Qianye scanned the monster and found that an oily membrane had formed over the injury, keeping the brain fluids inside. Apparently, there was no immediate threat to its life.
An all-out attack from Heartgrave was only able to blast away a part of its skull. That single shot had almost exhausted all of Qianye’s origin power. All he could do now was evade because he had no energy left to retaliate. If he could fire Heartgrave again, he really wanted to land another shot at the giant’s head. He wanted to see if that big fellow could stand up again after all of this.
Seeing that everyone had fled, Qianye stopped delaying things further. He flickered several thousand meters away and left like a beam of flowing light.