Chapter 117: The Death Snipe Is In ProcessTranslator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
When Qiao Zishan was discussing the action plan with the others, Vigilante A sat with crossed legs on a nearby stone, cultivating as he mediated. Sir System would never waste even a second of cultivation time.
The Black and Yellow Dog took the task of protecting their owner without needing any prompts. They scanned the area for danger, taking up the responsibility of ensuring their owner’s safety.
Xue Ba the Yellow Dog hid between nearby rocks, entirely covering its tracks. Both of its ears stood straight, its nose twitching occasionally, picking up any foreign smells. On the other hand, Brett the Black Dog sneaked among the bushes, ready to pounce at any given moment. However, the gra.s.s in the winter is less dense, and could not fully provide its black body the cover it needed.
When Qiao Zishan and the others were discussing, they did not shy away from Vigilante A. Thus, all of their words landed in Fang Ning’s ears.
Qiao Zijiang spoke the most, and all of her speeches were very organized. Every sentence of hers flowed perfectly. Their target destination has already been confirmed, but everything still needed intensive prior planning, from the initial contact and response, to what fatal tactics the targeted would use and how the team should handle them. All of that boiled down to planning, something that they could only do now as they have just gotten the intel moments before.
Fang Ning only listened in for a while before he felt a headache creeping up his neck. He could only silently lament the fact that he hadn’t unlocked the map for Central China, else he could identify all the monsters in the area with just a peek. If that somehow didn’t work, he could even search them using Esoteric Skills. Then, Sir System could directly go and face the monsters and farm them all, and all these plans, cooperation, counter-attacks can all go to h*ll…
It seemed to Fang Ning that he would need to support The Flight as much as possible after this, so Sir System could do some good within China on a daily basis. This could then prevent those demons from causing trouble in the area, and possibly affecting his big plan.
That idiot with no sense of strategic view would never be able to think of this without his reminder. If they were to unlock all of the maps first, they would gain numerous benefits that would offset the initial huge expense of lost farming efficiency. At the very least, they wouldn’t face any awkward situations like the one at hand.
After some consideration, he let Sir System call out to the Yellow Dog, who was still standing guard at the side. Then, he asked, “Xue Ba, could you locate the enemy like how you did when we killed the Insect Demon?”
Xue Ba the Yellow Dog rubbed its head with its front paw. “Venerable One, I couldn’t help much with that if we don’t have anything of our enemies’. However, I did manage to catch a whiff of Death Aura after a long period of sniffing. There should be one nearby that contained a mixture of the presence of multiple organisms. It’s highly probable that a large amount of life has perished in this area. What I identified was probably what was left after the bigger portion was somehow sucked away by some unidentifiable magic.”
Fang Ning blinked. No wonder it was so quiet around here. He then asked the Yellow Dog to tell Qiao Zishan of its findings before going back to its hiding place.
Then, Fang Ning also quickly informed Sir System so that it could start putting its guard up. It wouldn’t be an easy case this time. No wonder Qiao Zijiang took the safe path and actually planned the attack beforehand.
The System snorted. “If I needed you to remind me during every engagement, my corpse would’ve been cold long ago…”
Fang Ning was always one with a good sense of the situation. He knew that he could not afford to anger Sir System whatsoever now, so he just answered, “Okay, okay, this dumb one was just worrying too much here…”
Then, he continued to ponder upon some battle strategies. After all, this was the field that he could fake being a genius in…
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At the same time, that danger that could send chills down people’s spines approached.
At the peak of an extremely high mountain, thousands of miles away from Fang Ning and the others, were three people standing and looking at the river bank they were on. On the peak, tall rocks covered the area and wild gra.s.s yellowed. The chilly wind screamed as it rolled over the area.
Among these people was a tall man with Asian skin. After he stared for a while, he started scolding, rage curling through his voice.
“Sh*t! It’s all your fault, Rose! You didn’t cover your tracks well enough, and you didn’t manage to trick that d*mned Vigilante A till the very end! If we knew that sooner, we shouldn’t have gone near his servant. None of us could stand a chance against him! Anderson and the others only needed 3 more hours to successfully invade and get the technical information we gave so much effort for, are we going to sit by and watch our sitting duck fly away just like that?”
A middle-aged woman who looked around 40 years old bristled immediately, her average looks and saggy skin trembling in anger, “Lei Juedong, who are you losing your temper at? Vigilante A would be at our backs because your greed had you abducting Zheng Dao! Besides, Anderson was just full of it anyways, their techniques were so sh*t that they exposed us ahead of time!”
“None of those two reasons were remotely related to me. I deployed numerous disguises and methods to avoid those missing psionic individuals from getting detected earlier than they should. I have given you 7 days and 7 nights, it’s more than enough time for whatever you planned! What else do you want from me?”
“Shut up, you two! It’s impossible that Vigilante A is invincible. There’s still a way.” Suddenly, a short and skinny old man halted their bickering. He knocked his Chinese tobacco pipe on a nearby rock before he took two deep puffs of smoke. Then, he slowly spoke, “We have 3 people with us, and Anderson would later send a foreigner named along the lines of Luobo Teda 1 to our aid. Apparently, he’s a sniper from the land of America that they purposely hired for this mission. With 10 years of combat experience and a 2200-meter sniping record, Vigilante A might not be able to withstand that even if he is a True Dragon.”
Lei Juedong nodded before frowning again, “Would that gweilo 2 even understand what we’re saying? All of us can’t speak ‘Murica, and Anderson knew Chinese. They didn’t haul some b*lls.h.i.+t translator along.”
“They’re as busy as f*cking bees now, and there’s no way they’ll come here personally. If we were to temporarily get a ‘Murican translator, we’ll then need to worry about getting rid of him after everything’s done.”
The old man paused to think. “We won’t need to worry about that. Anderson said that Luobo Teda has some International Grade 5 certification for Chinese. It just that his speaking was still lacking. Apparently, he’ll do fine in ordinary communication.”
Lei Juedong’s forehead was finally smooth after he heard that. “Then that’s acceptable. We’ll see how good he is soon.”
Rose was still skeptical. “We haven’t had any prior experiences in cooperating with this gweilo, and our last actual combat was one year ago. Since then, we’ve been saving all our energy for this mission, and we never used that skill after that. Even though there’s a 100% hit rate from the side effect of the magic itself, how high is the success rate of us breaking through his defense? He’s a True Dragon.”
The old man placed his long-stemmed Chinese pipe and answered, “As long as we hit Vigilante A, there’s no need for us to succeed. We’ll be able to display the Death Snipe’s extra long range and immense power, which would definitely weigh them down mentally. Then, they’ll be extra careful when they take any steps forward, and we would then be able to live through the final 3 hours. Our task will be completed then.”
As the three of them spoke, a middle-aged man climbed up the steep mountain lane with great difficulty, with a heavy box weighed on his shoulders. He started at a path below the peak where the other three were, and in front of him was a Giant Rat, leading him on his way.
The conversation that flowed among the three came to an abrupt stop.
“He’s probably here. I’ll get him up so we don’t waste time.” The old man vanished from the mountaintop after he finished speaking.
Moments later, the old man appeared at the aforementioned path, and picked the man and the box up effortlessly. Then, he turned and spoke to the Giant Rat, “Return and tell your owners that after all this have ended, they’ve already cleared their favor. The ledger is clear after that.”
The Giant Rat seemed to understand human speech as it ran down the mountain after giving the old man a quick nod.
With another flash, the old man was already back at the mountain, now with the man and the heavy box in tow.
After he placed the Caucasian man down with his box, the old man proceeded to point at the man with his pipe. “So you’re Luobo Teda?”
Confusion flashed in the Caucasian man’s eyes as he pointed at himself and spoke in awkward Chinese, “Old sir, are you talking to me?”
“B*lls.h.i.+t,” said Lei Juedong as he walked over and clapped at the man’s shoulder, “Who else would he be talking to?”
Only then the Caucasian man nodded, “Sir, if you were to remove the ‘Da’, then it’s probably me. My full name is David Robert. Since Chinese would usually place the surname before the first name, then I can also be called as Robert David. You could even call me Robert, or David.”
“Nope, it’s a no to all three of that. From now on, you’ll be Luobo Teda, understand?” The old man waved impatiently and knocked his pipe again, “Did Anderson brief you about what should be done?”
Robert shrugged without care, “Okay, I’ll be whatever you want to call me. Anderson told me that he’ll get someone to cure my beloved daughter of her fatal disease as long as I listen to your instructions to kill a man or a demon. He’ll even give me a large sum of money.”
The old man was finally satisfied, “Okay, Luobo Teda, you’re an obedient one. Your performance will dictate whether your daughter will live. You should already know that none of us are your average Joe, so if you somehow thought it was a good idea to fool around, you’ll have nowhere to hide.”
Robert stood in attention, his back straight and still as he spoke, entirely serious, “I will definitely follow your instructions in the job, sirs.”
The old man nodded in approval as he noted the obvious discipline the man displayed. At the same time, he spoke in telepathy with the other two present.
The old man whispered, “This dude is quite an obedient one. If he is as good as the test subjects we had before, we should keep him and use him again the next time around.”
Lei Juedong shrugged, “That’s fine with me. Switching a sniper every time we use Death Snipe will restrict its powers anyway.”
Rose shrugged, “I don’t mind. You guys can decide whether we should kill him off or not. I have an undercover mission on hand, so I can’t have blood on my hands.”
After holding a silent discussion with his two partners, the old man gave Robert an instruction. “Luobo Teda, you remain standing still just like this, and do not be surprised no matter what you see later. Do not speak, and just do whatever we tell you to do.”
WIthout moving, Robert shouted, “Yes sir!”
Robert was a man of his words. He didn’t even flinch when he saw the short and skinny old man suddenly became even skinnier.
A puff of black mist surfaced from the old man’s body, its eerie aura causing chills to people just by existing. After it appeared, it rushed immediately into Robert’s eyes. The process wasn’t quick, but Robert didn’t even blink at the intrusion.
The old man seemed to have weakened substantially after the ordeal. He coughed repeatedly and took a few steps backward before leaning on a rock. He didn’t speak, but instead just waved to signal Lei Juedong to step forward.
“Alright. Now, look at the area below the mountain top right there.” Lei Juedong pointed at the direction where Vigilante A was located and signaled the Caucasian man to come closer, “There’s a river bank there. Can you see it?”
As Robert walked closer and looked at the direction that he was shown, his face was colored pink with surprise and excitement as he quickly replied, “What an amazing magical spell! I wouldn’t even be able to see over such a long distance with my sniper scope, but I could clearly see everything now with my naked eyes! Anderson was not lying to be after all, you definitely will be able to cure by poor daughter.”
“Cut the nonsense.” Lei Juedong was impatient as he hit the man’s shoulder hard again. “Tell me now, what do you see on the riverbank?”
“A black dog is hiding in the bushes, and there are 7 people. One of them is very handsome, and he’s sitting alone on a rock.”
Lei Juedong was finally pleased, “Even though you missed one, that’s still okay. You’re a highly skilled sniper indeed, judging from how quickly you could point out the main target. That handsome one is called Vigilante A, and that black dog is a Hound Demon. You don’t need to know its name, just understand that its Vigilante A’s dog.”
Robert nodded in understanding.