Volume 3 – The Place Where My Heart Feels At Peace, Chapter 34: Retreat
Bao Zhengcheng’s expression was stern. He directly plunged a syringe of stimulant into his thigh before lifting Tempest horizontally and filling it with power. Even if this arachne was two ranks higher than him, he believed that it would still suffer dearly in the hands of the “Tempest”.
The arachne let out an earthshaking howl before moving its eight long limbs, pouncing toward Bao Zhengcheng like the wind!
It was at this moment a gunshot that sounded like a boom of thunder suddenly cracked on the battlefield! The unique, clear and melodious clamor was familiar to the soldiers since some time ago. It was Eagleshot, and there was only one Eagleshot in the entire 131th Company!
The arachne’s large body suddenly tilted as a large mist of blood suddenly blossomed from its upper body. Its entire left arm and half a shoulder had vanished completely! It let out a long, bloodcurdling scream of pain and lost its balance completely, falling and crashing right down from the city walls.
Naturally, Bao Zhengcheng would not let go of such an opportunity. He charged to the edge of the defense walls as “Tempest” began to roar, spraying fifty or so origin bullets into the arachne and poking it full of holes.
The arachne could not climb to its feet any longer, but its sharp limbs were still swinging around with all its might, digging up all of the stones and soils that was within its reach. Fragments flew everywhere, and even the foot of the wall had a huge hole in it. Its was so tenacious it was scary.
Before he knew it, Qianye had already arrived beside Bao Zhengcheng. He pushed down the “Tempest” in his hands and took out an origin grenade. With a light toss, he tossed the grenade onto the arachne’s body.
“Dammit!” Bao Zhengcheng only managed to yell once before jumping down the wall along with Qianye and falling down on the ground. Qianye’s origin power was exceptionally condensed, and the might of a grenade powered by him would be increased by a full thirty percent.
An earthshaking explosion happened behind their backs, and the entire defense wall collapsed like a crumbling stack of toy building blocks, revealing an arachne about the size of a small house. This powerful creature had finally completely stilled.
The rank six arachne was the base’s leader. Once it was taken out, the rest of the matter became much simpler. An hour later, the dark race base formed by the werewolves and the arachne were basically cleared out. The 131th Company had only used ten minutes to sweep through the battlefield, obtain proofs of battle and a bit of the most important trophies before dressing up their troops and left in a hurry.
The surprise attack part of a guerilla format field mobile warfare in an area controlled by the dark races was not the most important part of the process. As long as the information was sufficiently accurate and complemented with the proper battle group, the chances of success would become extremely huge. The key here was how to avoid the patrols prior to combat to avoid the surprise attack turning into a forced attack or worse, becoming surrounded instead. The other matter was how to smoothly retreat post battle.
The fact that the entire base was taken out was absolutely going to enrage the dark race commander of this area. The battle group would be met with powerful pursuing troops and the encirclement by various dark races forces in the surrounding area that received the news along the way. The operations could be considered a complete success as long as they successfully escaped to a human controlled area.
Therefore, the 131th Company did not plan to fight more than necessary at all and fully carried out the tactical thinking of hit and run. They were here to earn military achievements and not money anyway. Considering that Qiqi spent well over several tens of thousands of gold coins on munitions, she most likely would not think much of the trophies of a single base.
Not far away down south was the mountain area. Qianye led his troops on a brisk run for two hours before they finally made it to the mountain area. He then ordered for an hour’s rest while he himself continued to scout forwards to see if their preplanned retreat route was safe or not.
The fact that they managed to escape to the mountain area without any resistance meant that their return trip had succeeded in half. Qianye could be considered a professional level expert when it came to exploiting complex terrain advantage.
Right now, he was using all sorts of terrain as cover while bending his body and moving like a ghost. However, the further ahead he went, the more serious his expression became. An indescribable sense of danger was growing stronger and stronger.
Qianye suddenly paused his footsteps, raised his head up to the sky and sniffed strongly.
A faint stench was transmitted by the night’s wind.
Every hair on Qianye’s body stood on their end. This was the unique smell of the arachne race! He suddenly sped up and charged up the mountain peak. Then, he lay down on the ground and poked up bit by bit to avoid casting a sudden shadow on the ground. Then, he carefully looked towards the other side of the mountain.
Inside the mountain valley, a troop of dark races were silently marching to the front. This troop was led by a couple of man shaped arachne with its main force comprising of several hundreds of giant sword spiders. The troop was like a black tide that almost merged into one with the night’s colors and was surging forwards along the mountain valley.
Qianye immediately sucked in a cold breath! Sword spiders were the regular soldiers of the arachne tribe. The two meter tall giant spider moved like the wind with two frontal limbs that were as sharp as swords and possessed strength the equivalent of a human rank one Fighter. The combat strength of this troop was already enough to forcefully devour the 131th Company.
Doubt rose in Qianye’s heart. Was there another battle nearby? Otherwise, why would there be such an arachne troop marching in secret? The scale of this force was way bigger than the usual patrol team.
However, this was not what he needed to think about right now. The important thing was that their scouts would discover the resting 131th Company if this arachne troop were to continue forward!
Qianye quietly retreated before running back to the camp at top speed. The moment he arrived he immediately lay down the order, “All troops shall end their rest and depart immediately!”
Bao Zhengcheng stood up and asked, “Aren’t we going to clean up the traces?”
Qianye said, “There’s no time! Use stimulants if there’s anyone who couldn’t catch up later!”
Three minutes later, the 131th Company had formed a long line and broke into a risk run under the night sky with Qianye in the lead. The arachne troops was right outside the two mountain ridges. When Qianye ran to the location he had memorized earlier, the entire squad gathered over and lay quietly in hiding. When the two troops brushed past each other precariously, they immediately reorganized themselves and escaped at top speed.
Bao Zhengcheng ran beside Qianye and asked in shock, “Why was there suddenly a troop of arachne sword spiders?”
“Perhaps there is an oversight in the intel, or the enemy has made some last minute adjustments. This isn’t uncommon. Lead the company, I’m going to go to the front and take a look!”
Once he was finished, Qianye that moved up and down several times and climbed up a mountain ridge. In the blink of an eye, he vanished into the night. Bao Zhengcheng’s face was grim. His instincts forged by long years of warfare made him felt that something wasn’t quite right. Thankfully, Qianye was more familiar in mountain warfare than even the most veteran scout in the squad. He also had better stamina and was able to endure such a high intensity night reconnaissance. Otherwise, they would’ve ran into that arachne troop a long time ago.
Just as he was thinking about this, Qianye had appeared from the night once more to exclaim in a low tone, “All troops to the left!”
The entire squad make a big turn, jumped over short hill and ran briskly along the other side of the valley. Bao Zhengcheng finally found an opportunity to ask him, “What’s at the front?”
Qianye’s face could not be seen clearly under the night sky. Only these soft words floated into his ears, “Werewolves. There are four full tribes of werewolves.”
Bao Zhengcheng’s expression immediately turned extremely ugly. Werewolves were the king of the mountains, and if they were caught by the werewolves where they had a military advantage, then the entire 131th Company—including the two of them who were rank four fighters—would not escape this place alive.
Qianye led the team over the squad over another mountain ridge before they ran briskly along the valley ground once more. By now there one soldier after another had exhausted their stamina, so the Fighter rank NCOs would carry a man on their backs each, grit their teeths and continue running madly behind the troop.
Two hours later, the edge of the mountain was within sight. However, due to the several huge turns they had made in midway, they were quite far away from the preplanned exit.
“What do we do now?” Bao Zhengcheng could almost say for certain that something was wrong. Here in this area, they had ran into two arachne and two werewolves troops in just half a night!
Qianye pointed towards the distance and said, “There is one of the fulcrums of our border defense line. If we rush there at top speed, we may yet have a sliver of a chance of survival.”
Bao Zhengcheng let out a long, drawn out breath before saying, “I know that place, but if we escape there then we will have to give up on the wounded and exhausted.”
He finally used the word “escape”. Although the 131th Company had managed to avoid all encounters safely relying on Qianye’s expertise, they did not have time to wipe out the traces of their march at all. Considering that the combat strength of the dark races in this area was this dense already, the chances that they would not be discovered was absolutely minimal. Perhaps there was already a troop chasing behind their tail right now.
“Let me make the order!” Qianye walked towards the squad that’s taking a short rest.
It was at this moment Bao Zhengcheng’s large hands stretched out to block Qianye. He said solemnly, “No! Let me make this order!”
Bao Zhengcheng walked before the soldiers and swept a glance across every tired face. He said slowly, “We have to march swiftly for another forty kilometers before we can return to the closest base from here. Now, who among you are willing to cover our retreat?”
The soldiers fell silent for a moment. No one spoke up. They were all experienced veterans, and they had all discovered that the situation was bad during their hastened march. Then, all wounded soldiers walked out on their own accord, followed by the soldiers who had completely exhausted their stamina to stand together as one.
Bao Zengcheng’s mouth trembled as he watched the dozens of soldiers with red eyes. He abruptly turned around and yelled, “Leave behind all grenades to our brothers! Let’s go!”
Once he was finished, he no longer looked back and became the first to break into a mad run. The rest of the soldiers who could still run looked deeply at their brethrens before leaving with Bao Zhengcheng as well.
However, Qianye did not move as he watched the soldiers who stayed behind. He said, “I will walk to the end of your journeys with you!”
A commando unit with and without a sniper was completely different.
A moment later, rumbling noises began to ring continuously from within the mountains. Gunpowder rose and spread over the entire valley, and the detonation of the origin grenades nearly brightened the whole black night sky!
On the wasteland, the soldiers of the 131th Company were all running madly with lowered heads. They did not need to look to know that there was a comrade gripping an origin grenade tightly and charging towards the enemy behind every explosion.
Bao Zhengcheng finally led the soldiers of the 131th Company and arrived at the small town called Earth Castle. There were only fifty four remaining soldiers who managed to reach here with him. It wasn’t even half the original number when they first departed.
Most of the casualties came from the ones who left behind to cover their retreat.
The small town had about a thousand or so human population and a five hundred men strong expeditionary forces garrison. Since the town was near the frontlines, Earth Castle’s defense structures were extremely well built. Most of the buildings inside the town were built from thick and heavy stones. The small alleys were tightly arranged, and most of them were incredibly narrow. These alleys were built for urban warfare since the giant spiders of the arachne race would not be able to squeeze into these two meters wide alleys, and a transformed high rank werewolf would find the narrow space restrictive as well.
Bao Zhengcheng climbed up a watchtower and looked towards the distant mountain area. His heart had already sunk all the way to the bottom. It was incredibly unusual for so many dark races troops to mobilize at the night. However, according to the latest intel they obtained, this region was supposed to be an empty area!
Now that he thought back to it, the last two dark races troops they encountered were only twenty minutes away between marches. This was practically a sign that the enemy was mobilizing their collective army. Did the military division of the Xichang City battlefield seriously not know about this situation?!
A cloud of darkness slowly enveloped this middle-aged man’s heart.
It was only until the next daybreak that a figure appeared on the horizon and ran towards Earth Castle.