Chapter 971 - 39: Waiting for the Hare by the Tree

"First, they gain trust, and then suddenly launch an attack... No wonder the advance team with equipment advantage was caught off guard," Bai Lingqiu said in a low voice. "If they had attacked the outpost outright, the advance team should have been able to defend themselves with the equipment they brought for some time."

"Even if they couldn't hold out, they could at least flee," Zuo Jun said. "The dune outpost has its own power system, and if they fully engaged the engines, the nomads' sand boats couldn't catch them."

"They were too careless," Candle Dragon said.

"It's my fault. I didn't inform them that I had killed the Priest of the Nuer settlement," Sun Hang sighed. "After they found out I had come out of the Desert Sea nomads' settlement unscathed, they might have mistaken this group of Desert Sea nomads for a naturally honest and friendly tribe. Coupled with the pretense these guys put on at the beginning, it was hard not to fall for it."

"Nuer, we need to find the settlement of the Desert Sea nomads now... No matter which settlement the attackers came from, they must have some connection with your settlement. So if we can find your original settlement, we'll be able to follow the trail and find the attackers who ambushed the outpost," Candle Dragon turned to look at Nuer.

But to everyone's surprise, Nuer showed a hint of terror at this moment. He pressed his hunter mark on his arm with his other hand and shook his head vigorously: "I... I was just about to say... I can't sense... the existence of the settlement anymore!"

"Can't sense it?" Mr. Wang was stunned. "Could it be that your settlement has been wiped out by another settlement?"

"No... I know the principle of the hunter mark. The scar was branded by the Priest in the settlement using a special branding iron, which should itself be a device-like anomaly. What's actually resonating with the hunter mark is the anomaly branding iron stored in the settlement, not the settlement itself," Sun Hang analyzed. "So the reason Nuer's hunter mark failed is probably that the anomaly branding iron in the Nuer settlement was destroyed."

"Then that's troublesome," Candle Dragon sighed deeply. "Without the hunter mark, finding a deeply buried nomad settlement in the Desert Sea is really like finding a needle in a haystack."

"There's another way," Sun Hang suddenly said. "Just capture another hunter... As for how to find the Desert Sea nomads' hunter, that's even simpler."

"Lurk at the path of the Sinking Sand Giant Worm and wait for an opportunity!" Candle Dragon quickly caught on.

...

...

The group didn't stay at the dune outpost but hid behind a giant sand dune about two kilometers away from the dune outpost.

A metal pole with buoys attached was buried in the Desert Sea. This was a seismic detection device specially developed by Dubhe Tower, used to detect the movements of the Sinking Sand Giant Worms in the Desert Sea.

Compared to soldier-carried detection equipment, this device's detection radius was expanded to three hundred kilometers, and its sensitivity and accuracy in detecting slight vibrations were significantly higher. Not only could it detect Sinking Sand Giant Worms traversing the depths of the Desert Sea, but it could also detect nomad sand boats cruising on the surface of the Desert Sea—though the detection distance for the latter was less than fifty kilometers.

During this waiting period, Candle Dragon wasn't idle. He reviewed all the recordings stored in the core and finally found the key reason why the dune outpost had been successfully ambushed.

In theory, with the defensive equipment at the dune outpost, even if the advance team was ambushed while completely unprepared, those automatic machine guns and laser weapons could instantly kill most of the Desert Sea nomads boarding the sand boat, covering the surviving team members as they retreated into the sand boat for defense. Maybe not completely repelling the attackers, but certainly buying a few days was not an issue.

In fact, in the recordings, those Desert Sea nomads were indeed attacked by the automatic defensive weapons within seconds of making their move. However, these weapons, lethal to ordinary people, only temporarily restricted them... The Desert Sea nomads, who had fallen after sustaining fatal injuries, quickly stood up again, and their bodies began showing significant signs of mutation...

"This should be what those researchers referred to as... the 'hidden memes' within the bloodline of the Desert Sea nomads," Candle Dragon glanced at Nuer. "These Desert Sea nomads, who appear no different from humans on the surface, upon sustaining fatal injuries, instantly transform their hidden memes into active memes to ensure the host's survival, thus causing the host to undergo supernatural transformation..."

"Nuer, I remember the person you killed before didn't turn into a wraith, right?" Sun Hang asked Nuer while looking at him. "You broke the bone spear and stabbed it into his chest at that time... Does this method stop him from turning into a wraith?"

Nuer nodded: "Only this way can the wraith be sealed."

"The bone spears Nuer brought back were carefully tested by Dubhe Tower and aren't considered anomaly devices," Candle Dragon sighed. "Although there's some anomaly memes remaining on the surface of the bone spears, the bone spears themselves aren't infected objects, and those memes will dissipate over time."

Nuer nodded his head half-understanding as he scratched it, then said, "Every time before hunters set out, we go to the Holy Temple to pray and receive the Priest's blessings. Apart from having the hunter mark branded on us, the Priest also blesses our weapons... But this blessing isn't permanent, and the seal is only temporary... It won't be long before the person I killed eventually turns into..."

"Wait!" Before Nuer finished, Candle Dragon interrupted him—the previously straight line on the seismic detection device terminal screen had already turned into a wavy line, with the amplitude of the waves rapidly increasing.

"It's a Sinking Sand Giant Worm!" Bai Lingqiu exclaimed lightly!

"And it's approaching us," Mr. Wang said with a smile. "Looks like we've got good luck."

"Let's find a place to hide first," Candle Dragon said. "Let the Sinking Sand Giant Worm pass, then wait for the nomad hunters tracking this Sinking Sand Giant Worm to appear, then we make our move."

The group retreated ten kilometers perpendicular to the path of the Sinking Sand Giant Worm's movement and only returned after it passed, setting up an ambush at the spot where the Sinking Sand Giant Worm had passed.

Just as Nuer described, at the place where the Sinking Sand Giant Worm passed, a lot of pale red, foul-smelling secretions were left among the grains of sand, and it was these secretions that the nomad hunters needed to collect.

"We won't have to wait long. These secretions only exist for half a day. If no hunters show up within half a day... damn, they came so fast?"

Sun Hang hadn't even finished speaking when two sand boats curved out from behind a sand dune.