Volume 5 – A Distance Within Reach, Chapter 66: Unexpected
Alarms erupted immediately in the mine. The guards roared as various weapons opened fire, sending forth a shower of gunpowder projectiles and origin bullets.
An extremely faint layer of dark purple emerged on Zhao Yuying’s body which extended vertically into a protective arc and enveloped the motorcycle. She didn’t have the slightest intention to decelerate or change directions and simply charged straight into the tempest of bullets. She tugged violently at the head of the motorcycle upon approaching the gates—the vehicle rose into the air before the countless dumbfounded arachne and vampires, leapt over the gates, and landed in the mine.
Behind the gates was an extremely large plaza, on one side of which was a small mountain of black stones. There were numerous caves at the base of the mountain in the distance with railway tracks extending into each of them. This kind of mechanization could be considered a major investment on Evernight Continent where manpower was still heavily relied upon.
The mine was brightly lit. Although the dark race warriors all possessed night vision, the mining slaves couldn’t see in the dark, and the illumination was prepared specifically for them. Even so, the dazzling lights were simply too extravagant, a clear indication of how much importance the count attached to this mine.
There were hundreds of smiths at the center of the mine, busily setting up a massive origin array hundreds of meters in diameter. There was a mountainous pile of crates beside the law array, and judging from their external appearance, they seem to be components for its assembly.
Smiths capable of constructing a law array of such scale couldn’t be slaves—they should be true technicians of considerable individual strength. Such professionals were of significant value in either faction. With Stuka’s strength and position, recruiting even half this number would cause him to suffer greatly—the numbers before them certainly wasn’t something an Evernight count could afford.
Qianye saw this and understood why Zhao Yuying wanted to raid this mine so urgently. No matter what the function of this origin array was, a matter capable of making the arachne count ignore an invasion into his lands was definitely of utmost importance.
But before he could even decide what to do next, the group of people standing beside the array glanced back successively in alarm. The first to turn was an elderly person.
Qianye’s heart skipped a beat after seeing the other party clearly. He only heard Zhao Yuying exclaim in astonishment, “Stuka!” Apparently, meeting the elderly man here was also well beyond her expectations.
The elderly man was the master of this domain, the arachne count Stuka. Qianye had seen pictures of him, the viscounts under his command, and certain other important characters in his early military intelligence. But why was Stuka here instead of staying in his castle?
Since even Stuka was here, it was only natural that his elite units would be nearby.
Qianye had already calmed down. The enemy’s strategic location was where his side had to strike—this strategy could never go wrong in any era. It was just that, with the old man here, the surprise attack had now become a direct confrontation. Apparently, a bitter fight was imminent.
Within moments, Qianye’s hand was already on the Twin Flowers at his waist. At the same time, he reached into Andruil’s Mysterious Realm with his consciousness and began to go through the suitable munitions within.
After a cry of surprise, Zhao Yuying gritted her teeth and leapt off the vehicle with Qianye in tow. It was unknown what button she had pressed during this maneuver, but the motorcycle engine reached its peak once again—the four large exhaust pipes spewed out long jets of flame and screamed toward Count Stuka like a mad bull.
Without waiting for Count Stuka to move, an arachne viscount beside him waved his hand and conjured a spider web out of thin air to envelope the motorcycle. However, the output of the vehicle Zhao Yuying had modified far surpassed the viscount’s expectations. The vehicle shook slightly in the air as its wheels spun wildly, and quite unexpectedly, it only sank for a moment before charging straight at Stuka.
Stuka let out a cold snort and attacked in person. Three dark green colored spider webs appeared at the same time and wound tightly around the metallic machine. This time, the motorcycle couldn’t break free and was dragged to the ground. With a loud boom, it smashed to the ground near the law array amidst a cloud of dust and debris.
Stuka looked up with a sneer and numerous jade green lights started flickering between his fingers. But then his expression changed abruptly as he turned back to glance at where the motorcycle had landed.
The motorcycle engine had yet to die after smashing to the ground; it was still trembling, and its temperature was climbing rapidly. The origin arrays outside the kinetic chamber had not dimmed down. Instead, they were glowing progressively brighter and, in the end, began to spew out flames.
Stuka had no time to issue a warning and shot out a spiderweb with a wave of his hand. But it was too late; the motorcycle exploded with a loud boom. The force of this explosion could only be stronger than a vampire origin grenade and not weaker.
Everything within fifty meters apart from Count Stuka and the two viscounts was blown away by the shockwaves. Even the smiths working on the law array were affected by the ripples; many of them collapsed after they were struck by the sputtering metal fragments.
Count Stuka turned back furiously and was just about to chase after the two bold human insects when he suddenly noticed two origin grenades flying toward the half-constructed origin array.
Stuka was greatly alarmed—he immediately rose into the air and intercepted one with a spider web while blocking the other with his own body.
Two balls of fire erupted in the air with a loud rumble as shrapnels flew out like rain in every direction. Count Stuka’s figure emerged as the flames receded—his hands were wrapped around his head in a protective stance, and the origin power radiance around his body was flickering unstably.
The count lowered his hands and looked down at himself. Two tears had appeared on the formal attire crafted by a famous master.
A layer of frost had appeared on the count’s expression when he looked up again. Darkness origin power began to spread out like rolling haze as though a small storm was brewing. He had taken a hidden loss during their first exchange.
Originally, it would’ve been impossible for a grenade to blast open a dark count’s origin defenses regardless of its power. But the count hadn’t expected that the human who had used this unorthodox weapon was, in fact, a champion who had secretly condensed tangible daybreak origin power onto the explosive and used it like a throwing weapon. Moreover, that person’s origin power attribute was extremely unique and quickly broke through his origin defenses.
At this moment, explosions rang out in succession.
Qianye followed tightly behind Zhao Yuying and finally witnessed this beautiful lady’s fiery combat style. She warped around like the wind as she rushed about the mine, dropping grenades at every stop before continuing to the next.
Qianye followed her for a part of the way but turned toward a different direction after finding that she didn’t need his protection at all. He also produced two origin grenades, stuffing one into a random building and tossing the other toward the center of the law array.
An arachne viscount waved out a spider web amidst furious roars and wrapped it around the grenade mid-air. A dazzling burst of light erupted in the air soon afterward as origin power shockwaves rippled out, almost affecting the law array.
Stuka’s expression was dark. He hurriedly issued some orders and then threw himself in Zhao Yuying’s direction to give chase. His guard forces were originally resting in the row houses at the border of the mine. At this moment, they were just running over, but after seeing the count’s gestures, they turned away to flank Qianye instead. Meanwhile, the arachne viscount beside Stuka stood guard near the array for fear of Qianye and Zhao Yuying attempting to destroy it.
The origin array was yet to be completed and simply couldn’t withstand the destructive power of an origin grenade. It wasn’t even certain whether or not the shockwaves would affect the precision instruments within.
Meanwhile, Qianye and Zhao Yuying had realized, from how Stuka had personally intercepted the grenades, that the array was his greatest weakness. As such, they would throw an origin grenade toward the array from time to time as they waved through the mine. In this manner, they had effectively restricted that arachne viscount to the area around the array.
The mine was in chaos and explosions rang out everywhere in close succession.
Stuka’s guard unit found no success in trying to capture Qianye. The latter’s speed had far surpassed these high-ranking soldiers and would often take advantage of his powerful physique to meet them head-on. He hadn’t brought out East Peak and only relied on the Twin Flowers and hand-to-hand combat. And despite that, no one was his match.
The guard force only managed to slow Qianye down slightly even after paying a steep price of one baron and one knight in casualties. As for those ordinary warriors, miners, and smiths, their losses were even greater.
The dark race warriors had never encountered a battle where grenades were used in such large amounts. Zhao Yuying’s large backpack was filled to the brim with origin grenades and almost nothing else! Under her special methods, every grenade was capable of producing extreme destruction.
Most of the grenades Qianye had tossed out weren’t origin grenades. But that didn’t make the situation any better—gunpowder grenades possessed great cost to performance ratio against cannon fodder. With Andruil’s Mysterious Space in his possession, the number of grenades he was throwing out could only exceed Zhao Yuying’s rate. So much that he was throwing them out continuously without the need to search for specific timing and angle.
Stuka had locked onto Zhao Yuying and was hot on her trail. However, the latter was extremely fast and exceptionally crafty—she took full advantage of the mine’s complex terrain and refused to fight head-on with Stuka. The count chased for a long time and almost succeeded in intercepting her on several occasions, but she always managed to slip away at the last moment.
The count scattered spider webs on numerous occasions, but all of them were pierced through directly and failed to impede this human-shaped T-Rex in the slightest. He decided to stop wasting his origin power after numerous repeats.
Stuka suddenly realized that his own path was about to converge with Qianye’s at one point. After a moment of hesitation, he scattered a spider web to block Qianye’s advance. This little rat who wasn’t even a champion had caused no less damage than that woman, and as such, he decided to spend a few seconds to help his guard squad kill off this troublesome fellow.
But sanguineous flames lit up around Qianye’s body at this moment, accompanied by specks of faintly discernible golden light. He charged straight forward and swaggered off, leaving only a human-shaped hole in the jade-green spider web. At the same time, two origin grenades were thrown out toward the origin array.
Stuka was stunned and his expression became increasingly ugly. He let out an earth-shattering roar as his body suddenly began to swell, ripping his formal attire to shreds.
The arachne count revealed his absolute combat stance—an incomparably large arachne with two striking green lines at his waist. At this moment, Count Stuka was five or six meters tall, and his spider body was like a small hill. The pressure from his gaze alone made one feel asphyxiated.
The count reached out to grab the javelin one of his guards had tossed out and flung it with a cold snort. He then shot the javelin toward Zhao Yuying at lightning speed.