Chapter 116: Isolated
Just as a whole troop of men came charging into the inner region of the base, a vaguely transparent white screen suddenly rose from Owl’s Sanctuary, enveloping the entire base from within.
This white screen was called a large communications inhibitor, able to create high-density spatial interference waves that inhibited any communication signal within the covered area, preventing transmission, thereby isolating the universe at large from contacting anyone within the base, and vice versa.
“Follow me! The heart of the base is on the top floor. Let’s charge in and capture Scar alive,” Ning Baichen exhorted with his two arms raised.
The paths in Owl’s Sanctuary were in a spiral, going from the dock at the very bottom all the way to the command center on the highest level, so they required people to climb quite a long distance which comprised sixteen floors.
Around eight thousand warriors hailing from different forces all surrounded Nin Baichen and the other local giants, forming an a.s.sault formation as they pushed forward.
The path on both sides had some function houses and warehouses. These warriors continued to purge the enemies from both flanks as they made progress, looting anything valuable that they came across like a swarm of locusts. Everything was left in tatters as they went away; anything valuable would be s.n.a.t.c.hed, and anyone breathing was killed.
“This is an alcohol warehouse! Everyone, come quickly!”
It was unknown who yelled this, but thousands of warriors surged into the warehouse to grab the stored items even as they drank what they could, emptying the place in the blink of an eye.
Many warriors each had a bottle of beer in their hands and several more stuffed in their pockets, drinking as they returned to the main force and continued their charge ahead with eyes wild and frantic.
“Haha! Old Ning, I think Scar and his cronies are doomed this time. Let’s ma.s.sacre our way in and trap them inside the command center—wipe all of them out in one fell swoop,” suggested Green Rock Base’s leader Liu Jian to Ning Baichen as he laughed uproariously.
Ning Baichen smiled but did not say a thing. His cloudy eyes still shone with cunning. Due to the lack of trust between the two, these base leaders had all brought along their trusted men with them, and everyone was on guard against one another. Though they all appeared to be joking and laughing together now, the truth was that each of them was constantly calculating just how they could backstab the others, maximizing their profits while suffering the least losses.
Among the eight contingents here, Yellow Rock Base’s leader Huang Bocheng, who had brought the most men, possessed the greatest effective strength, but despite this clear advantage, he did not flaunt it. Instead, he diligently admonished his men to refrain from drinking, keeping them hold his two wings, even sending some from time to time to scout ahead.
Ning Baicheng slightly furrowed his brows and laughed at Huang Bocheng. “Old Huang, you’re being far too cautious. We’ve already gained the upper hand here, so let the warriors drink whatever they want. Scar’s trapped in the Sanctuary’s highest level, anyway, so there’s no escape for him even if he wishes to do so.”
For Huang Bocheng to have held the biggest base in the vicinity, it of course meant that he was quite the capable man and was by no means a pushover. He shook his head solemnly. “Old Ning, it’s best to be prudent in all things we do in case of any unexpected situations.”
Ning Baichen nodded. “What you spoke of rang true. It’s not too late for us to celebrate after we’ve taken Scar’s life.”
Owl’s Sanctuary was in a state of chaos. Scar’s men had retreated along the ring road in an orderly fas.h.i.+on, stopping every segment of ground they retreated to while making use of the buildings found along the way as temporary placements, utilizing some light weapons to do bits of retaliation.
Because of their limited firepower, what little retaliation they mounted was hardly effective. Aside from slightly slowing the enemy down, it hardly achieved anything of value. Before Scar’s men could even return fire, the coalition army’s firepower would come forth like a storm, hitting them so hard that it sent them running for cover.
The more haggardly Scar’s men appeared to be, the more excited the warriors from the coalition army felt. Each of them believed that victory was within grasp, and complacency gradually spread among these men.
Both lasers and projectiles required ammunition, and it was just that the former needed energy capacitors, while the latter needed bullets; it was merely a difference in the shape of ammunition.
The warriors drank. After winning skirmishes, each of them burned with zeal and proceeded to wildly shoot at these buildings, pipes, and even the enemies far away that they could barely make out. They did not seem to mind the waste of ammunition, treating it as a sort of celebration and deterrence. At the end of the day, there was no purpose for their shots, and their act would hardly harm or kill anyone.
Xia Fei was hanging at the back of the whole lot, acting all timid and afraid. He would grab some spoils he came across on the streets from time to time, and slowly, he found himself being left behind by the main force.
Though he was behind, Xia Fei’s eyes were still scanning and taking mental notes of what the coalition army was doing the entire time. Because he had cultivated his Beast Spirit Codex to the second stage, Xia Fei’s eyesight was far stronger than most, and considering how he had always enjoyed taking note of the small details, he very swiftly noticed several issues.
Ning Baichen’s youngest son, Ning Laosan, was nowhere among his contingent. Furthermore, there were four calm warriors who stood guard beside him at all times. The four guards were all tall and buffed, creating wind under their feet wherever they went. They kept a vigilant watch of Ning Baichen’s surroundings as they circled their charge, expressionless and giving off an air of professionalism.
There was also the fact that the warriors Ning Baichen had brought were all very self-disciplined, not partic.i.p.ating in any of the lootings in this raid of Owl’s Sanctuary. They were instead the loudest whenever they found something, luring others to their location before disappearing the moment the crowd arrived, leaving others to fight over the loot while they did not even spare it a second glance.
More importantly, very few of Ning Dingchen’s men were using their weapons, with most anxiously following behind the force. They would all rush to the front and attack whenever they came across enemy warriors, but their shots would almost always miss the target by a lot; it was as if they were new recruits who had not even learned how to aim.
‘No, I need to get away from this bunch as soon as I can; the actions Old Ning and his men are making are too strange,’ Xia Fei thought after he was done observing the force.
Tully, the man in charge of keeping an eye on Xia Fei, had been beside him this entire time, going fast when Xia Fei went fast, and waiting around for him to be done whenever he stopped to pick up some spoils. Though he was unimpressed with Xia Fei’s money-grubbing yet fearful of dying ways, he did not say a word about it, and he simply kept following Xia Fei wherever he went.
The path they were on slowly became narrower and even more complicated, with more and more dark alleys appearing on both sides. Everything in these alleys was a mess as if they had long been ransacked by the force in front of them.
Xia Fei faked a look of pain and ran toward the entrance of one such alley; he propped his one hand on the wall as he panted raggedly, his back slightly bent as if he was very worn out after everything.
“What’s wrong with you?” asked Tully suspiciously as he walked up beside Xia Fei.
Xia Fei pointed his finger to his chest, heaving breathlessly as he answered, “It’s… been a… long time… since I last exercised. My heart’s… beating… a lot.”
Tully knitted his eyebrows. “Look at you being so incompetent; is your body made of paper? We’ve barely walked three kilometers—”
Without waiting for Tully to finish his condemnation, Xia Fei suddenly reached out and grabbed hold of his neck, effectively silencing him. He then directly lifted the man up as he exerted strength to his legs and instantly ran a hundred meters out.
Because Xia Fei was at the tail end of the coalition army when he suddenly fled with Tully, no one noticed them; everyone had no idea what had just happened at all.
*Cras.h.!.+*
Xia Fei threw Tully into a dark alley, his Chasing Light already unsheathed, with its sharp pointed tip right at his captive’s throat.
Tully was dark-skinned, a complexion that was as black as charcoal, so Xia Fei could not see any visible change in his skin color, though Tully’s face was frozen in astonishment and fear as he sweated profusely from his forehead.
He had always thought Xia Fei was just an average hooligan who was greedy, slick, and afraid of dying. Such people were a dime a dozen in the Wild Star Region and were completely worthless. He had been disappointed when Ning Baichen instructed him to keep an eye on this person, wis.h.i.+ng he could just slap Xia Fei to death.
Tully never thought Xia Fei could so easily restrain him as he did. From the instant Xia Fei unleashed his explosive strength and speed, Tully could tell that he was not just some random hooligan but an expert, instead. The placement of his hand on his neck had been perfect, making it such that he would be unable to make a noise while ensuring the strength he used would not kill him outright. Just this confidence Xia Fei was demonstrating in his strength control was far above his.
“To think you’re actually an expert… a speed ability user?” Tully gathered what courage he had to ask this question. His throat hurt from being manhandled by Xia Fei, so his voice was still a bit hoa.r.s.e.
Xia Fei nodded slightly and reached out to remove Tully’s red armband, and there seemed to be a b.u.t.ton-sized item in that thin, red cloth.
Xia Fei slowly pulled down the armband and flipped it over to examine it.
All he saw was a circular metal item that was stuck to the armband with super glue. It was completely imperceptible if anyone was merely looking at it.
“Our armbands seem to be different.” Xia Fei smiled. “You now have two options: Either you tell me yourself or I force it out of you.”
Xia Fei intentionally pushed the point of his blade an inch closer so that it was now poking Tully’s skin, sending that ice-cold metal sensation straight to his brain.
Just as Tully was about to speak, Xia Fei suddenly drew an arc and slashed open his throat. Tully’s eyes rolled and he collapsed onto the ground. There was a final shudder from his body before he became dead to the world.
“Why did you kill him?” Phantom asked, puzzled.
Xia Fei exchanged Tully’s armband with his own. “His eyes were quite frantic, blinking thrice every second. That means he’s trying to come up with a lie, and I wasn’t interested in hearing any of it.”
Phantom pouted. “I realized that you have an almost paranoid trust of your judgment. What would a few blinks tell you? What if he’s preparing to tell you the truth?”
Xia Fei shook his head. “If I were in normal circ.u.mstances, there would indeed be no harm in hearing him out, but where am I right now? What’s my present state? The only one I can trust at the moment is myself, and since I’m already suspicious of his words, why should I bother listening? What if he told me some lies which ended up clouding my judgment? I can’t risk that.”
Phantom was speechless for a good while before finally heaving a helpless sigh. “Sometimes, I really do wonder if you’re the a.s.sa.s.sin or me. Forget it; what are you planning to do next?”
Xia Fei gave it some thought before answering, “The men from the Ning clan have a different armband than others. There’s more to this here. Also, Scar’s men are acting very strangely. Their very orderly retreat seems like something that they’ve rehea.r.s.ed prior.
“This situation is very complex. I’m not exactly sure, so it’s best to keep observing before we decide on our next actions.”