Volume 3 – The Place Where My Heart Feels At Peace, Chapter 39: Chaotic Night
The Seventeenth Corps’ joint defense camp beneath Qiqi had moved to the expeditionary force’s 58th Division defense zone yesterday, whereas her self-recruited private army had reached the 58th Division defense zone today. While the combat strength of this private army was slightly lousier than the expeditionary force’s regular troops, they could sufficiently serve as a reserve force and defend the secondary defense line. With their addition, the 58th Division defense zone’s strength had massively increased.
Military officers like them were required to return to their respective squads by tomorrow morning. For the past two days Ji Yuanjia had been handling military affairs, and he had long since memorized the map of the Dongling Mountain Area. When he heard Qiqi’s inquiry, he had reacted almost instantly and felt a huge change coming over his face.
The expeditionary force’s 58th Division and 55th Division’s defense lines were arrayed in the shape of a crescent along the edge of the Dongling Mountain Area from north to south. The head and tail of the defense line stretched over three hundred kilometers. Earth Castle was the southernmost border defense node, and the 131st Company was garrisoned near the 58th Division slightly north of the center of the battlefield. Leaving aside what the 131st Company was doing having travelled such a far distance down south, that mountain area was already a battlefield since last night!
Ji Yuanjia’s eyes abruptly sank when he looked into Qiqi’s eyes. Right now the pair of beautiful eyes were usually glowing with health and vigor to the point of condescending had become so serene and depthless it was as if they had lost all the emotions in them.
“Gu Liyu has come to Evernight.” Qiqi wasn’t asking. It was an affirmative sentence.
Ji Yuanjia opened his mouth, but could not let out a sound. It was true. During that night at the feast at the castellan’s mansion, he had seen Gu Liyu at the parking lot. At the time, there was another person beside Gu Liyu, namely Yin Family’s Old 17 and the great elder of Jingan Hall. Meanwhile, Qiqi was one of the direct line of descent of Yin Family and the successor candidate under Jingan Hall.
“Don’t worry, I won’t put you in a difficult situation before Uncle 17.” Qiqi’s tone was so courteous that it was strange to Ji Yuanjia. Then she said, “Give me the military’s troop deployment writ.”
The air inside the study suddenly turned heavy. It was as if the streams flowing across gradual slopes had suddenly stagnated and turned sticky. It wasn’t Ji Yuanjia’s imagination. Before he knew it, there were two elderly people standing beside the window and at the door. They were both maintaining the same posture where their sleeves were tucked in and their eyes were half open. They didn’t look like they were looking at him, but the truth was every bit of origin power inside Ji Yuanjia’s body had completely froze up. He wasn’t able to urge them even a millimeter.
Ji Yuanjia closed his eyes and revealed a bitter smile on his face. Qiqi’s birth mother, the late lady of Jingan Hall had left behind these two people for Qiqi. Just like Auntie Lan, they obeyed no one but Qiqi.
Two hours later, an airship rose into the air from the Yin Family’s side courtyard, meeting the wind and drawing a curved orbit in the air as it flew towards the south.
The few courtyards to the east of the side courtyard were brightly lit at this point. They were military officer residences, and among them the biggest Wind Hearing Pavilion was normally used as an office.
Ji Yuanjia stood in front of wide meeting table and read the letter Qiqi left behind with a bowed head. The letter was in fact a hand drawn map with labels around some parts of the mountainous area near Earth Castle at the southern region of Dongling Mountain Area. The location marked with a star on the map was where the 131st Company’s tracks were found.
Qiqi did not explain to him the source of the information, nor did she say exactly what she discovered. But the way she acted meant that something must have happened to Qianye, and the fact she immediately related the incident with Gu Liyu meant that the situation must be very serious already.
There were shadows pacing back and forth repeatedly outside the meeting room, but since they chose not to come in Ji Yuanjia pretended that he did not see them. Someone had already noticed that Miss Qiqi had taken off suddenly on an airship without bringing a single officer with her. An uneasy atmosphere was quietly spreading to the surroundings.
Suddenly, there was a series of rapid footsteps. A lieutenant colonel charged in, “Ji Yuanjia, why have you sealed off the archives room!”
Several file holders were put on top of the meeting table. The 131st Company’s files were among them too. Ji Yuanjia had just sent some men to bring them over, but instead of the usual people he had dispatched the private guards Qiqi recruited instead. The way they collected the dossier was to charge straight into the archives room and lock up the officers on and off duties inside.
Ji Yuanjia said indifferently, “Good timing. Why have you not presented the 131st Company’s report from eight days ago?”
The lieutenant colonel walked to the table and extended a hand to grab the file holders while saying, “What could there be in a regular report? Aren’t those usually filed away directly?”
Ji Yuanjia pressed a hand softly on the file holders, “How about my private letter then? Did you file that away directly as well?”
The lieutenant colonel was startled for a moment before he said, “What private letter? Ji Yuanjia, I’m the one who’s responsible for military intelligence. On what authority are you interfering with my business? You and I share the same rank, and your surname is not Yin!”
Suddenly, Ji Yuanjia let out a smile. It was true that the guy standing before him was Yin. He might be an extremely distant collateral relative, but he was still a Yin.
There was a loud bang. The sound spread very far away on this rather fretful night, surprising the military officers who were already disturbed in the first place. They stared somewhat blankly at the meeting room which doors and windows had been completely blown away by the shockwave. A figure crashed out of the meeting room and landed straight into the courtyard. Meanwhile, countless dazzling thin threads fell like the rain from the air, splashing against the limestone ground and leaving behind many notches that looked like sword auras.
They might both be lieutenant colonels, but the result of the clash showed that this guy couldn’t even handle a hit from Ji Yuanjia!
Ji Yuanjia’s voice rang from inside the room, sounding both gentle and steady, “Please get some early rest, everyone. We will be departing to the camp and returning to the squad by tomorrow’s daybreak.”
Right now though, he was thinking about another person and a specific line of spoken words.
“I promised Yu Yingnan to protect him once no matter what kind of danger he was in.”
“Ji Yuanjia, you are just a Yin Family dog. How dare you raise your hand and hit me? You just wait, the Yin Family won’t let you off easy!” the lieutenant colonel could not climb to his feet, but his expression was still as fierce as before. His gaze on Ji Yuanjia suggested that he couldn’t wait to tear him to pieces.
Ji Yuanjia collected all of the related intel within the battle zone and put them into a single bag. He walked out of the door and arrived beside that lieutenant colonel. There was a flash of sword, and the lieutenant colonel named Yin suddenly let out a bloodcurdling scream. An ear had flown into the air!
Ji Yuanjia said indifferently, “What you say counts for nothing in the Yin Family. What that person behind you says counts for nothing either.”
Ji Yuanjia left hurriedly after leaving behind these words. The lieutenant colonel clutched his wound and shuddered all over as blood flowed continuously between the gaps of his finger. The fear in his heart far surpassed the pain on his physical body. He just realized that Ji Yuanjia would kill him without hesitation if he were to say even one more word.
It was only now that he realized that the usually gentle Ji Yuanjia was a wolf when he bared his fangs.
The latter half of the night at Earth Castle was just as restless.
The second wave of assault had begun. The roadblocks had burned into massive flames, and flares cut through the night sky occasionally to shower brief moments of light to the battlefield beneath. The sounds of gunshots weren’t dense, and in fact there were more sounds of melees and bloodcurdling screams. The dark races had lost several thousands of cannon fodders, but the human soldiers and civilians had lost huge numbers as well. Therefore, the number of people thrown into this battle from both side were largely decreased, but the level of desperation was even greater than before.
The sound of Eagleshot was as stunning as ever. It was like a sudden clap of thunder in a summer day, but there was also an indescribable sense of clear resonance that spread it far, far away. There was no one among the experts of the dark races who wouldn’t recognize Eagleshot’s unique timbre.
The moment Eagleshot boomed, it meant that a certain high rank soldier had collapsed on the battlefield. Those who could use Eagleshot basically wouldn’t miss.
Eagleshot had rang twice in tonight’s battle, and a rank six arachne and a rank six werewolf had collapsed with severe injuries. Since the arachne was overly huge and could not hide itself in time, it took another three origin bullet shots and countless physical bullets. In the end, it passed away unwillingly.
The problem now was: Would Eagleshot ring again?
Right now, Qianye was utilizing the dim light of night to traverse amidst the ruins. His night vision was not in anyway weaker to the dark races at all, and the longsword in his hands had had been satiated with blood all this time. Two werewolves were chasing relentlessly behind him, following Qianye all the way into a small abandoned courtyard.
There were no roads left in this place, but Qianye had not leaped over the wall and left as they’d expected. Instead, he tossed down the longsword in his hands, crouched down on a bush and picked up a sinister-looking giant double-handed axe!
Blood sprayed into the air within the courtyard, accompanied by the whines of two werewolves.
A moment later, Qianye walked out of the courtyard while holding the giant bloodstained axe. A human-shaped arachne appeared on the opposite side of the street.
The second the arachne saw the giant axe in Qianye’s hands, its humongous body suddenly started to tremble. It actually turned around and ran away!
There was no way it could forget that the giant axe had belonged to a famous warrior among his race. However, that arachne warrior had died in the first battle.
An arachne who could swing a giant axe like this was very scary. A human who could swing it was even scarier!
The arachne’s movement were extremely clumsy as it tried to move its humongous body through the narrow passage. Qianye caught up from behind in the blink of an eye as the giant axe whistled downwards and cut open its flank entirely! The arachne struggled at its deathbed as it terrible screams resounded throughout the entire small town.
Qianye roamed throughout the entire town like a lone wolf. He used whatever weapon he saw and hunted down the enemy’s high ranking dark race warriors repeatedly. His body had never exited the state of blood boil, and his body was still full of blood. In order to fight continuously Qianye had cut open several werewolves’ throats, sucked their blood dry and tossed the bodies casually to the side.
The night was unusually long, and the dark races were so many that it was as if he could never kill them all. No matter which direction he went he would be met with countless enemies. Meanwhile, the number of people who were still capable of moving and fighting grew fewer and fewer.
Suddenly, an unusually thick and strong black furred werewolf appeared in Qianye’s vision!
Qianye retreated at top speed before turning a corner and leaping right into an empty house. He stretched a hand beneath the table and took out Eagleshot. Then, he knelt on the ground and pointed the barrel at the door. The second that rank six black wolf appeared, Eagleshot would give it a frontal assault.
However, the werewolf hadn’t shown up in Qianye’s vision. This made him very surprised.
A tall and sturdy figure flashed past the door, and Bao Zhengcheng charged into the room. The second he saw Qianye, he immediately cried out with great joy, “Boss! We can’t hold out for much longer. Leave quickly! Charge out from the south side. We still have a dozen or so brothers with us, and we will send you away together!”
“Not a chance!”
“If you die here, how are we suppose to explain things to Miss Qiqi?”
“There is nothing between the two of us!”
Bao Zhengcheng said urgently, “Boss! We can’t all die in this place. Someone has to go back and notify the army!”
Qianye tossed an assault rifle to Bao Zhengcheng and said, “The magazine’s full. Hold out for just a little longer. Those black blooded bastards are about to break too!”
Bao Zhengcheng and Qianye matched eyes for a moment. Their gazes nearly caused sparks to shoot out of the space between their eyes. In the end, he realized that Qianye wasn’t willing to break out of the siege, and he angrily smashed a fist against the wall until the entire thing wobbled once. Then, he turned his head and charged out of the building. Qianye put down Eagleshot once more and randomly picked up a longsword from the ground. He went out of the door.
Meanwhile, a small, unexpected confusion was happening on the other side of the battlefield.
Inside a courtyard, the mournful and angry wolf howls were so shrill that it nearly tore apart the air. A group of werewolves and a few vampire warriors were standing on opposing sides in battle postures. Both parties were letting threatening howls and low growls non-stop as the situation looked poised to erupt at the slightest trigger.
There were two werewolf corpses put at the center of a courtyard. Their bodies had been completely sucked dry of blood.
“There’s no way a member of our kind did this. There’s no way!” The leader of the vampire warriors said loudly.
The werewolves all roared restlessly, “Who else but you would suck blood?!”
The vampire warrior said arrogantly, “We will never suck your filthy, dirty blood even if we were to starve to death!”
This was supposedly a very common dialogue between the two great races, but on the battlefield and especially when there were still two werewolves lying dead on the ground, the vampire warrior’s words became the fuse that caused the situation to go out of control.
A werewolf failed to restrain himself and suddenly pounced towards the leader of the vampire warriors. The vampire warrior was already at rank five, and his aged face only meant that he had an unbelievable stove of battle experience. He whipped out his longsword as quick as lightning with a cruel, sinister smile on his face, piercing the heart of the werewolf who was still his ally just a few minutes ago!
A civil war broke out and swiftly spread across the battlefield. By the time the black wolf arrived, both parties had left behind several corpses already.
A Blood Esquire swung his two-handed broadsword and nearly cut the werewolf warrior before him in half in a single strike!
The black wolf was absolutely furious as the color of blood instantly rose to his eyes. He charged across the battlefield like a black storm and instantly dropped the Blood Esquire to the ground, tearing and biting at him fiercely!
When Qianye and Bao Zhengcheng roamed halfway across the town and met up once more, they discovered that the pressure they endured had lightened considerably even though the roars on the battlefield were as loud as ever. Moments later, the dark race warriors that covered nearly the entire city suddenly faded away like tide water.