The Opponent Changed Suddenly

Hua Xiezhi was the female gunner's nickname, and she was quite famous among the Hunters.

The female gunner flew into a rage at that. "I'm not done living yet... You dare reveal my name? Iron Palm Gang, this isn't over!"

Having her nickname exposed was still a leak, especially when the enemy was someone so terrifying.

The sidecar motorcycle sped away, kicking up billowing clouds of dust.

At that point, even if Qu Jianlei wanted to keep it, he could not—the dust had blocked his vision as well.

Without hesitation, he switched to the Gauss Machine Gun and sprayed the two motorcycles.

The gunner on one motorcycle was hit, and the bullet also caught the rider, sending them crashing to the ground.

The last motorcycle was terrified by the sight and fled at full speed without caring about anything else.

The sky-full of dust obscured the motorcycle's shadow.

Qu Jianlei did not want to waste ammunition either, so he lay prone, set up the Gauss Machine Gun, and used short bursts to pick off the people in the truck.

After a dozen or so short bursts, two more people in the truck were shot dead.

The last one was scared out of his wits and actually jumped straight out of the truck.

Before jumping, he tossed out a Gauss Automatic Rifle so he could return fire after getting down.

The idea was not wrong, but just as he rolled over to the Gauss Gun, a beam of light shot toward him.

His body jerked, and his head slammed into the ground. He did not move again.

"Idiot," Qu Jianlei muttered softly. "He basically wanted me to shoot a stationary target."

If the man had simply rolled around at random, Qu Jianlei really would have had little he could do, especially with the circling truck kicking up plenty of dust.

The standard choice should have been to jump from the truck with his weapon.

Unfortunately, that kind of move tested a person's military training too much.

For an ordinary person in that situation, getting out of the truck without injury would already have been impressive.

After killing that man, three people remained alive on the other side. One was severely injured, while the other two had light injuries.

Dealing with those three was a little difficult. One kept rolling around, while another hid behind a motorcycle.

After half an hour, Qu Jianlei finally killed all three.

Hairless Freak had already ridden the motorcycle back. After fleeing a long way, he had still taken a look at what was happening behind him.

Riding off on the motorcycle and leaving? That was unimaginable to him.

He could escape for now, but once the supplies in the vehicle ran out, he would still be dead.

After carefully giving each person another shot, Qu Jianlei beckoned him over. "Search the spoils."

Of the sixteen people who had pursued them, eleven corpses were left behind, along with three motorcycles and an open-bed truck.

There were even more guns and ammunition. Even Hua Xiezhi, who had escaped, had left behind a Laser Rifle.

Unfortunately, the Laser Rifle had been damaged in the fall. This kind of weapon was far less sturdy and durable than a Gauss Gun.

Still, it was not completely useless. At the very least, they could salvage some Laser Gun parts from it.

Amusingly, those eleven people had barely fired any shots in total, saving them quite a bit of ammunition.

The greatest gain was naturally the open-bed truck. With this vehicle, they finally would not have to drag along that patched-together cart anymore.

After the two cleaned up the battlefield and loaded the corpses onto the truck, Xiao Jing actually sighed. "Too bad two vehicles got away."

"Good enough," Qu Jianlei said, shaking his head. "Luckily, they weren't professional enough. Otherwise... we might not have been able to escape at all."

Though he said that, he could not help laughing when he saw the truck packed full of spoils. "What a logistics captain."

Xiao Jing could not drive, so Qu Jianlei took over.

But after they had gone only a short distance, he discovered another problem. "The fuel tank is leaking!"

Out in the wilderness, Qu Jianlei had no good solution for a fuel leak.

He could only plug it with some plastic, then seal it with tape.

Just after finishing that, he was about to continue onward when clouds of dust rolled up in the distance again, with a sidecar motorcycle taking the lead.

"They dare come back?" Qu Jianlei flew into a rage at the sight. He jumped into the truck bed and swung the Vehicle-Mounted Machine Gun around.

The other side was startled when they saw him as well. They hurriedly took out a piece of red cloth and waved it through the air in a triangular pattern.

"Fallen?" Qu Jianlei truly had not expected the retreating group to run into Fallen.

After thinking it over, he picked up the loudspeaker. "Keep running. Don't stop. Go around from the front of the truck!"

He was not worried about those three at all. His truck was stationary, and he had the deadly Vehicle-Mounted Machine Gun in hand.

As long as they did not slow down, he had no reason to worry. Even a sharpshooter would have a hard time aiming accurately from a jolting motorcycle.

Seeing that their earlier opponent was willing to cooperate, the sidecar motorcycle indeed passed by the front of the truck.

At the same time, the rider shouted, "Careful, they have a Vehicle-Mounted Machine Gun too!"

Chasing the sidecar motorcycle were one truck and two motorcycles.

The billowing dust made it hard to see clearly, but their rough outlines were still visible.

The three pursuing vehicles were also affected by the dust and did not notice Qu Jianlei's truck at first.

By the time they spotted it, they hurriedly slowed down and braked.

But it was already a little too late. Qu Jianlei pulled the trigger, and the Vehicle-Mounted Machine Gun spat flames wildly.

The sidecar motorcycle also circled back. The woman in the sidecar grabbed a machine gun and unleashed a furious barrage.

It had to be said that experienced Hunters could easily develop combat coordination.

Qu Jianlei focused his fire on the truck, while the sidecar motorcycle locked onto the other two motorcycles.

An angry roar came from the vehicles on the other side. "It's an ambush! Retreat!"

But it was ultimately too late. One motorcycle was blasted into the air by Hua Xiezhi in a Violent Explosion.

Qu Jianlei's barrage also took out the truck's Driver, and he continued sweeping the truck with gunfire.

The only remaining motorcycle was terrified and immediately turned around to flee.

Five minutes later, the battle was completely over. Qu Jianlei and the sidecar motorcycle worked together to kill the remaining Fallen.

As for the two sides continuing to fight each other? That was not happening!

Hua Xiezhi directly raised both hands and shouted, "I offended you today. I accept the punishment!"

Qu Jianlei had no moral qualms about wiping out the roots, and he did not mind killing them all.

But he remembered that in the previous battle, the sidecar motorcycle had been the first to flee, and there had clearly been some dispute among them.

So he kept the Vehicle-Mounted Machine Gun aimed at them. "We can talk about compensation later. Why were you chasing me?"

"The Iron Palm Gang intends to move fully into Sweetwater Camp," the woman answered bluntly. "And you happened to offend them."

Qu Jianlei had already guessed the cause and effect, but he had not expected it to be connected to the gang moving in.

In any case, the answer displeased him greatly. "Hmm... I offended them?"

"It doesn't matter who offended whom," the woman answered readily. "They needed to establish their authority, and you just happened to be carrying supplies."

Qu Jianlei nodded slightly. That was what he thought too. It did not matter who had offended whom; they were already at odds.

"The Iron Palm Gang... is it called that because someone has a Mechanical Arm?"

"Just a mechanical hand," the woman replied, unsurprised that he had guessed. "But the gang leader usually does not make a move."

After a pause, she said disdainfully, "What a waste of a mechanical hand."

"Waste or not, it's still his own," Qu Jianlei said flatly, then asked again, "What about you?"

"I was hired," the woman answered without hesitation. "Thirty percent of the spoils go to me."

Qu Jianlei was not surprised by that answer either. "How much can you compensate me?"

The woman raised a hand and pointed into the distance. "All the Fallen's spoils are yours... how about that?"

Qu Jianlei snorted. "If I hadn't stepped in, you'd be dead for sure. It should all be mine anyway, shouldn't it?"

The woman asked calmly, "You know Article Two of the Exterminate the Fallen Covenant, don't you?"

The spoils were to be divided equally... Qu Jianlei remembered. That covenant had once been too far removed from his life, so he had not thought of it.

But he did not intend to follow her terms completely. "That emphasizes combatants... You were being chased down!"

"Fine," the woman said, not intending to argue over it. In truth, being able to survive today had already been an incredible stroke of Luck.

"What else do you want?"

Xiao Jing spoke first. "Take out that Two Snakes... He hit me several times!"

"Mm, that's one condition," Qu Jianlei said, nodding. "That small request can be met, right?"

"Too easy," the woman replied arrogantly. "Finding that little nobody might be harder than killing him."

Qu Jianlei pondered for a moment, then looked at the other two. "Can these two be trusted?"

"They're my brothers-in-arms," the woman answered decisively. "Whatever you say to me, I'll tell them."

"Then come over and be a hostage," Qu Jianlei said with a slight nod. "I need to handle something. Any problem with that?"

"Big Sis, don't listen to him!" the rider cried anxiously.

"No problem," the woman answered without hesitation.

Then she looked at the rider. "If he meant us harm, he could have simply not rescued us just now."

The rider could not help muttering, "We might not have failed to get away."

"Shut up," the woman snapped, stepping out of the sidecar. "Have you forgotten what I'm best at?"

The rider's lips moved twice before he finally fell silent.

Watching the woman climb over the truck rail and jump directly into the truck bed, Qu Jianlei was somewhat puzzled as well. "What are you best at?"

The woman hesitated before answering, "Intuition."

Qu Jianlei was momentarily stunned, then nodded. "That is useful in battle."

He truly did not believe anyone's intuition could be stronger than his, but there was no need to argue over such a thing.

He took out an elastic cord and tied the woman's hands behind her back. "All right, let's go look at the loot."

The rider and the other man were furious, but they could not bring themselves to resist.

Hostage-taking was not particularly common in the Wasteland. Here, life truly was cheap.

But the woman was the leader of the three, and more importantly, Qu Jianlei's actions did not seem especially hostile.

If something went wrong, the two men would fight back, but they had no desire to launch an attack first.

When they drove over to take a look, everyone felt a little sick.

There were three corpses in the Fallen's truck bed, and they had been dismembered.