Book 4, Chapter 152: Breakout

The airship continued rising, but the airship crew remained nervous.

Even though the airship was equipped with machine guns, incendiary bombs, and thick plates, they were worried about Chen Chuan.

If a martial artist of his caliber used projectiles, they could pose a threat to an airship within a certain distance.

Fortunately, Chen Chuan didn’t do anything else. Also, since they only had enough fuel for a round trip, once they rose to a certain height, they didn’t linger around to continue observing him. Instead, they started heading back.

Chen Chuan watched them leave without doing anything about it, because he still remembered what his goal was. Someone needed to bring word about it back to base. This was the best way to force the imperial army to react the way they wanted.

Chen Chuan had thought about it. The imperial army shouldn’t be able to send too many elites into the undeveloped area. The two units he killed should comprise most of the people they could free up.

Even if they still had some elites left, they shouldn’t send them over after what just happened.

Besides, it was already too late to do so.

They were going to head to the outer edge of the undeveloped area with the artifact. Even if more imperial army units came to intercept them, without elite martial artists blocking their way, it was impossible for the imperial army to stop them.

If they wanted to get the artifact, they needed to send a martial arts master for the job.

A rustling sound came from the trees. It had finally started raining. Chen Chuan quickly searched around for horses.

Even though his riding horse was blasted apart, he had brought several others with him so that he could switch between them. He also had some packhorses. When he started charging forward, the packhorses had fallen behind. Chen Chuan had subjugated them with his mental energy and biofield, and Dawncall was watching them from above, so none of them ran away.

Chen Chuan grabbed his raincoat and put it on before putting on rain gear for all the horses. Then, he grabbed another raincoat and cut it up so that he could cover Dawncall too. Once he was done, he ordered Dawncall to stay on a packhorse’s back before getting a riding horse over, getting on it, and riding off after the moving light.

***

Xu Chan was running swiftly ahead of Chen Chuan. Just then, he tilted his head and avoided a bullet coming at him before bringing an arm up, swinging it left and right, and smacking away the other bullets coming to intercept him.

A person jumped down from the tree ahead, but before he could land, Xu Chan flung his arm forward and attacked with his long sword. He pierced through the man and impaled him to a tree. Xu Chan didn’t even bother to look. With a flick of his arm, he withdrew his sword. By the time the man slid off the tree, he was already dead.

While Xu Chan was sheathing his sword, another person shot out of the bushes, and Xu Chan threw a dagger at him, as if he had already known. With a wet squelch, it struck the person’s neck. Without being able to even make a sound, the man collapsed while cradling his neck.

Xu Chan didn’t stop and continued forward. He had killed more than ten such people so far. They weren’t too strong, but they were skilled in hiding their tracks and setting up traps. They weren’t a threat to him, per se, but they did stall him. He couldn’t tell whether there was anyone strong hiding among them and waiting for him to lower his guard before charging forward.

So, he kept his biofield and mental energy spread around him to keep track of all movements in the area.

He also paid attention to his rear, because he had a feeling that his attackers were just trying to hold him back, which meant that the true danger was going to come from another direction.

Up to this point, though, he hadn't noticed anyone in the rear. It didn’t take him long to figure out why that might be. It wasn’t that no one was coming from the rear, but that his team had killed them. Things were going according to their plan, so he did not need to consider anything else. All he needed to do was to take down the enemies before him.

Some time later, he noticed the number of attacks dwindling, but he didn’t relax because of it. He had a feeling that the imperial army wasn’t going to give up so easily.

He was soon proven right. The sound of many creatures moving through the forest reached his ears, and then, he saw hairless apes with protruding mouths dashing out at lightning speed straight toward him.

They were White Plagues, bioweapons often used by the imperial army. They could spread diseases and carry powerful explosives. Upon seeing so many of them coming at him, Xu Chan didn’t continue forward, but changed direction. After a few meters, he did it again.

He made the right call. Soon after he changed direction, the area he was in exploded. A pillar of fire and a blast of air assaulted the trees and stones. Someone had detonated remote bombs buried here long ago in expectation of Xu Chan running on top of them.

But he wasn’t out of danger yet. The moment he went to the other side, he changed direction again. Just like before, another explosion happened, but Xu Chan managed to avoid it with his experience and great judgment.

The White Plagues made it to him. These things could also carry explosives in their belly pouches, which would explode from external stimulation.

Xu Chan didn’t want these things anywhere near him, so he threw his daggers at the White Plagues and pinned them to the ground. For a time, the road was filled with pained wails.

The bullets were still flying at him, so he threw daggers back as a counterattack, but he soon ran out of them. After a moment’s consideration, he removed his raincoat, grabbed throwing spikes attached to his belt, and continued throwing them to clear up his path.

Moments later, though, he ran out of the throwing spikes too, while it didn’t seem like the number of White Plagues was getting any lower.

At this point, Xu Chan gave up on saving his mental energy. Light shone out of his eyes, and an invisible shockwave spread out in all directions.

This method of attack was the most effective. The White Plagues collapsed in waves, which was a clear sign that they didn’t have any protective items on them. This wasn’t because the enemy overlooked it, but because they wanted him to use up his mental energy. This was a crucial moment, so he had no option but to use it.

After running for a while, Xu Chan started feeling mentally tired, so he took out a vial of medicine and drank it to freshen up his mind and continue onward.

No attacks came from the rear, as if he had already gotten out of the encirclement.

He was quite surprised. Could it be that their plan succeeded?

After some thinking, he thought that it was highly likely. If Chen Chuan killed all the pursuers and there were no powerful martial artists among the ones in charge of blocking his path, this was about as intense of an attack as they could throw at Xu Chan. They could stall him, but they weren’t much of a threat to his life.

His theory held true, and he didn’t run into any other troublesome situations. Even when night arrived, he didn’t stop. Instead, he continued onward until the sky started turning bright again. By then, the rain had mostly stopped.

At that moment, he heard flapping. When he turned around, he saw Dawncall in the sky, and the Bird Reptile chirped at him. The sight of Chen Chuan’s pet bird reassured him.

According to their plan, if everything went smoothly, Chen Chuan would enter the area of the light, but in order to be on guard against any possible units who might still want to attack them, he would maintain a certain distance from Xu Chan. Dawncall’s arrival and the lack of any attacks from behind him showed that the plan was a success. Now, he needed to find a place to deposit the artifact and leave so Chen Chuan could take over.

The reason he didn’t ask Dawncall to bring it back to Chen Chuan was because the artifact attracted merged space creatures, which would make it an easy target. Since it wasn’t strong enough to defend itself, it should not touch something like that.

Xu Chan took out the artifact and located a vitalized tree. He deposited the artifact inside it. The tree would protect the artifact, and he wouldn’t have to worry about it moving away, at least for the time being.

He took a few steps back. According to their plan, what happened next would have nothing to do with him. His task now was just to get out of the encirclement.

Xu Chan had a feeling that Chen Chuan knew more than he shared, but he wasn’t going to pry. After all, he should never take on more than what he could handle and just focus on what he could do instead.

He took a look behind him and saluted before saying, “See you at the base.”

Then, he vanished into the forest.

***

Around half an hour after he left, rapid hooves drew close and stopped at the tree.

Chen Chuan got off his horse and went to the vitalized tree. Once he released his mental energy, the tree trembled, and the artifact fell out of the hole.

Chen Chuan bent down to pick it up and inspect it. From this moment on, he was going to carry the artifact. After killing most of the elites, the next person he would have to face was most likely the conqueror general.

While Xue Shou said that two martial arts masters from the Great Shun Republic would hold the conqueror general back and that their plan was failproof, the details might change here and there, which meant that anything could happen. If Xue Shou hadn’t been worried about something going wrong, he wouldn’t have left that wisp of mental energy as a warning.

Chen Chuan checked the mental mark on his hand and said, “Mr. Xue, I’d like to ask you something about reaching the Fourth Limit.”