Chapter 457: The Wind Thieves Who Command Hurricane Beasts

The turbulent storm was expanding rapidly. In just one hour, it had spread from the north of Flying Fish Town Island to the eastern, western, and southern regions. At the same time, numerous wind patterns appeared in the sky.

This was a climatic phenomenon caused by the hurricane pouring into the island.

Numerous Hurricane Beasts could also be seen entering the island along with the turbulent storm.

However, they could only live within the wind, and since the wind patterns created by the turbulent storm were high in the sky, the beasts couldn't descend.

This was good news for the residents of Flying Fish Town.

The last time this happened was over a hundred years ago. Nearly three generations of people had come and gone, leaving only scattered records of such turbulent storms.

"All the Windwalkers from the Wind King Palace have been mobilized, and all the able-bodied men of Flying Fish Town have been assigned various defensive tasks," Qi Suian muttered.

He, of course, was one of them. Someone had handed him a crossbow and a quiver of bolts. The town's militia captain gave him a quick lesson on how to fire it before rushing off.

Qi Suian wasn't the only one to receive such an assignment; many others had as well.

Thanks to his good luck, he was assigned to a position as a crossbowman in the rear.

Others were issued spears, longswords, and shields, preparing for close-quarters combat.

Of course, most of these people were militia members or had prior training; otherwise, they would never have been sent to the front lines.

"You're right. Some Windwalkers went in to scout it out. Word is, it's the Wind Thieves on the other side," said a portly, middle-aged man beside Qi Suian.

The man was a butcher in town. He had a fierce and menacing appearance, but that was just for show; in reality, he was quite friendly.

The reason he was in the same trench as Qi Suian was that everyone here was a shop owner from the same street.

Meat wasn't something ordinary families could afford to eat often, and neither was candy.

Therefore, Qi Suian and the butcher were both considered owners of "minor luxury" shops.

It made sense they were grouped together.

"Fatty Qi, with a build like yours, you should be on the front lines charging. Instead, you're back here with a sickly guy like me holding a crossbow. Aren't you embarrassed?" Qi Suian teased casually.

His own assignment to the rear was also due to his appearance.

"Don't be fooled by my size. I, Fatty Qi, may look sturdy, but it's all just flab." Fatty Qi was his nickname; few people knew his real name.

He didn't mind, though. A well-known name brought in more business.

"So what's the deal with these Wind Thieves?" Qi Suian asked.

Snakes have their paths, and rats have their tunnels.

A man who ran a butcher shop naturally had his own sources of information, so it was normal for him to know more than Mi Yun.

"They're supposedly a group of Windwalkers who can control their island, move it in a specific direction, and even lock onto other islands."

"They're in the business of burning, killing, and pillaging."

"Tailor Hu, from Southeast Street? Before he was blown here to Flying Fish Town, the island he lived on was one of the Wind Thieves' dens."

"It's a good thing he had a useful skill, or he would've been killed as a ritual sacrifice long ago," Fatty Qi said without holding anything back.

Qi Suian found this fascinating. 'Bandits can thrive in a world like this? With the Sky Island setup, shouldn't everyone be focused on farming and building up their forces?'

"Actually..." Fatty Qi looked left and right before lowering his voice. "They *are* Windwalkers from a Wind King Palace."

"Not all Wind King Palaces are as decent as the one in our Flying Fish Town. A lot of them are rotten, and their Windwalkers are arrogant and aloof, completely disregarding the lives of ordinary people."

The Wind King Palace in Flying Fish Town certainly had many privileges, and plenty of dark deeds born from those privileges were swept under the rug.

Overall, however, it was quite decent, at least in its treatment of ordinary people.

Before Qi Suian could offer any pleasantries or probe for more information, a visible change occurred in the turbulent storm up ahead.

This caught everyone's attention.

Even Fatty Qi, with trembling hands, loaded a bolt onto his crossbow and began to aim with clumsy movements.

Qi Suian followed suit, his mind pondering, 'Why would Hurricane Beasts be controlled by Windwalkers?'

The next moment, a massive, octopus-like creature extended its tentacles from the heart of the turbulent storm.

The Windwalkers were prepared. Before the Hurricane Beast's attack could land, they had already severed all of its tentacles.

This wasn't like last time, when there was only a three-person squad of Windwalkers. This time, every Windwalker in Flying Fish Town was present.

As the severed tentacles dissipated into gusts of wind, the Hurricane Beast within the storm let out a pained wail but made no further attempts to attack.

"Impressive. You actually dare to harm my pet Eight-Clawed Beast." An angry voice boomed from within the storm.

A dense crowd of nearly a thousand Windwalkers emerged, weaving through the turbulent storm.

They moved with a practiced skill that showed this was clearly not their first time.

The speaker was the one-eyed man at their head, his appearance as fierce as his voice. He was the Wind Thief Leader.

Seeing their numbers, the faces of Flying Fish Town's Windwalkers paled slightly.

They only had a little over a thousand Windwalkers themselves.

In terms of combat prowess, however, the Wind Thieves were clearly superior.

"Get out of Flying Fish Town!" The mayor, who was also the Grand Elder of the local Wind King Palace's Windwalkers, stepped forward and rebuked them.

However, he wasn't met with a reply, but with a lightning-fast attack from the Wind Thief Leader.

The battle erupted in an instant. A brutal slaughter commenced between the Windwalkers, their weapons forged from wind.

Qi Suian casually fired his crossbow at the enemy, not putting any real effort into it. Without revealing his true strength, his accuracy and lethality were completely negligible.

"Steady your hands. Try not to shoot our own men," Qi Suian said, glancing at the trembling Fatty Qi.

He had a large frame, but it was all for show. It was fine for intimidating people, but in a real fight, Fatty Qi was just an ordinary man.

A butcher certainly had his advantages, but they were nothing compared to a Windwalker.

"Don't worry, I..." Fatty Qi started to reply while loading a bolt, but in that instant, disaster struck.

A WHOOSH of wind cut through the air. An arrow made of condensed wind pierced Fatty Qi's forehead, and it seemed to have an explosive property, for it blew his head clean off his shoulders.

And that was just the beginning. A dense volley of arrows rained down from the sky.

This was clearly the attack of a particular Wind Thief.

Qi Suian shifted his body slightly and emerged as a survivor of the explosive volley.

This act of killing civilians immediately enraged the local Wind King Palace and its Windwalkers.

Even if Flying Fish Town's Windwalkers weren't all natives, they were children who had grown up there. Among the dead were distant relatives, neighbors who had watched them grow up, and even immediate family.

This was tantamount to kicking a hornet's nest.

The Windwalkers of Flying Fish Town, whose combat experience was mostly limited to fighting Hurricane Beasts, now fought with the desperate courage of a cornered army. Their morale soared, and their combat effectiveness surged.

They went from being at a disadvantage to fighting on even terms.

At the same time, the ordinary people in the trenches were spurred into action.

'A single volley of arrows can take your life. The only way to save yourself is to kill the enemy first.'

"A pack of swine!" the Wind Thief Leader cursed, then decided to retreat.

The enemy's resistance was too fierce. Even if a forced assault resulted in victory, their losses would be catastrophic.

They could only choose to temporarily avoid the worst of it and wait for a more opportune moment.

With their leader taking the initiative to retreat, the other Wind Thieves certainly weren't going to stay behind. They all scrambled to be the first to flee.

"How can a disorganized mob fight so fiercely?" Qi Suian narrowed his eyes. "There must be some special opportunity at play."

The Windwalkers of Flying Fish Town weren't weak, just inexperienced.

After a few more of these island-to-island battles, they would undoubtedly transform into seasoned veterans.

When that time comes, they'll be able to annihilate this band of Wind Thieves in half an hour, tops.

The advantages were clear: they had the home-field advantage, superior numbers, and better equipment and supplies than the Wind Thieves.

Aside from the gap in real-world combat experience, they surpassed the Wind Thieves in every other aspect.

'You don't get strong by just "farming," after all.'

"I wonder what kind of opportunity it is... Should I go take a look?" Based on his analysis of the data, Qi Suian concluded that this turbulent storm would last for at least three more days.

Therefore, the two islands would remain in contact for another three days before drifting apart.

This meant Qi Suian had three days to explore.

'I could even choose to occupy the opposite island and use it as my own experimental base.'

Flying Fish Town, where he'd arrived, might be hiding some major secrets, which was why Qi Suian had been cautious. The Wind Thieves, on the other hand, were a different story.

'For them to be acting as our "opportunity delivery service," they can't have much of a background. When the time comes, I won't have to be so discreet. I can just start slaughtering and capturing test subjects.'

The restraints in Flying Fish Town were too numerous.

"Time to move the base, then." Of course, Qi Suian wasn't planning on leaving right this second.

'I still have to go home and pack up my things.'

'If I'm moving, I have to take everything with me. Leaving it behind would just be giving it away to someone else for free.'

As the Wind Thieves retreated, the Wind King Palace began to manage the aftermath.

The personnel were not withdrawn, however. They didn't know when the turbulent storm would end, but they understood they had only temporarily repelled the enemy.

Thus, they wouldn't let their guard down; instead, they would double their defensive efforts.

This was especially true since they had just lost a number of civilians, all of whom required compensation and pensions for their families.

In the battles to come, they had to do their best to minimize such casualties.

The Windwalkers had also suffered losses; at least a hundred had died in that last clash.

This was an even more severe blow to the Wind King Palace, a crippling loss for their already limited number of Windwalkers.

Furthermore, they had to guard against another attack from the Wind Thieves, which would be no easy task.

After all, they were on the defensive. Who knew what the enemy was planning?

Some advocated for a counterattack, but the Wind Thieves had experience navigating the turbulent storm, while they had none.

If they tried to attack, they would suffer heavy casualties in the turbulent storm long before they reached the enemy's island.

The fact that they dared to make a living by plunder proved they had their own unique advantages and a firm grasp of them.

Therefore, Flying Fish Town could only focus on defense.