"I'm telling you, if this really won't work... we should pull out. Don't throw our lives away. Even if their patrol is terrible, there are still five professionals. Neither of us is an assassin. If they make even the slightest sound and the alarm goes off... every professional in the whole camp will jump up and come after us. Then..." Kane spread his hands at Punk. "I'm not confident that I'm a good mouse, but I think they're definitely a pack of good cats." Kane gave the camp one last helpless look. In this meticulously patrolled camp, he truly could not find any flaw. The enemy was clearly battle-hardened elite troops. Though the number of patrol personnel was not large, they formed a tight warning network. Punk's group was now hiding behind a bush, feeling like a rat trying to bite a turtle—nowhere to start.
"Wait patiently. Out of the other seven groups, someone is bound to lose their nerve!" Punk had already abandoned the infiltration plan. For a mage to sneak in and set fires under the vigilant patrol of one Journeyman Level professional and four Apprentice Level professionals was practically impossible. What Punk was waiting for now was chaos created by the other teams. That was their only chance!
"Come on, those guys aren't idiots either. How could they possibly volunteer to be the first bird out of the nest?" Kane had grown so bored that he was drawing circles on the ground with the armor covering his fingers. He had started to lose hope in this operation.
Boom!!! Almost the instant Kane finished speaking, a huge explosion rang out. A faint blaze rose near the enemy grain depot. Beneath the swaying shadows, the entire camp became like a pond struck by a stone. Its original calm was instantly replaced by noise and chaos. An urgent alarm bell rang out from the camp, its shrill warning tearing through the night sky like the miserable howl of some beast. Every soldier and professional hurried toward the rising flames!
"Fuck! Some idiot who doesn't know the meaning of death really did make a move!" Kane stared blankly at the distant firelight. He snatched up his lance, and thin strands of battle qi began winding around his armor and lance like swimming snakes.
The moment he saw the flames, Punk's pupils contracted sharply. The Lesser Deflection Field activated at once, and he layered several defensive fields with different elemental resistances over himself.
"Do you think there are idiots among Konola City's Journeyman Level professionals?" Punk asked Kane in a dark, icy tone.
"Yes. Kane laughed with near-hysterical delight while subtly tilting his head toward Pute."
"...!"
"All right, all right, don't make that dead-man face. At most there's one idiot. Otherwise, I'll start doubting my whole life." Though Kane still wore his usual carefree grin, he no longer made any effort to conceal the fluctuations of battle qi around him.
"Since Lunka has set up defenses as airtight as an iron barrel, and there won't be any 'good people' among the professionals willing to sacrifice themselves for everyone else, then... who do you think caused this blazing chaos?" Punk returned to his usual expressionless calm. He lightly stroked the ruby tip of his staff, then seemed to pose the question to himself.
"I've decided we should start running early!" After saying that with utmost seriousness, Kane leaped out of the bushes, rolled lightly across the ground, and ran into the night. At the same moment, Punk cast Feather Fall Spell and "flew" alongside Kane at high speed along their preplanned escape route.
"Hey! Hey, hey, hey~~~" Pute was still standing there with a bewildered expression. He had not even recovered from the joy of seeing the flames. What he had imagined was following the seniors into the enemy camp, slaughtering his way in and out seven times, then returning in triumph like a hero beneath the sunlight. But in reality, after the two seniors exchanged a string of incomprehensible remarks, they turned and ran. There was not a trace of the heroic spirit found in knightly novels. Seeing their backs vanish far into the distance in an instant, Pute instinctively sprinted after them with all his might. His dream of heroism had completely shattered...
Punk and Kane had no time to care about Pute, that burden. There was only one explanation for chaos appearing in an enemy camp with such tight defenses—it had been created by the enemy themselves. At that thought, Punk felt the urge to curse. He had assumed that enemies trying to wear down Konola City through a resource advantage would spare no effort in defending their grain depot. As long as they found a flaw, they would have a chance to complete the mission. After all, Punk had thought the enemy patrols would mainly consist of ordinary people. How could those proud professionals be willing to take on such a "low-level" job as patrolling? Lax defenses should have been inevitable. But Punk had not expected Feren's elite troops to be so disciplined, nor had he expected Lunka to have never intended to fight a prolonged battle. They had actually created chaos themselves, staging a fire "near the grain depot" to lure large numbers of professionals into attacking. All the less rational professional teams were surely heading for the grain depot right now, seizing this "perfect opportunity." And the depot undoubtedly concealed layers upon layers of ambushers, perhaps even expensive large-scale magic arrays. Once Lunka wiped out all the professionals gathered at the grain depot, that would mean nearly twenty Journeyman Level professionals—half of Konola City's military strength!
I'm still not mature enough. Punk silently blamed himself for not thinking things through, reminding himself to remember this lesson.
"Those guys are screwed. If we had scattered, Lunka, a mere warrior, would never have found us. But now... heh heh, a whole school of big fish has taken the bait on their own." Kane still looked utterly carefree. Even while racing forward, he did not forget to make a few remarks. This speed, only slightly faster than an Earth sports car, barely consumed any of his stamina.
"But now their grain depot is probably ruined too. Those guys are still capable of setting a fire before they die." Under the resistance-reducing effect of the Haste Spell, even Punk's speech became much faster.
The scenery beneath the night sky rushed past Punk's eyes. Afterimages of trees lurked in the darkness like ghosts and monsters, baring their fangs and claws as they let out silent roars from the depths of the shadows...
Suddenly, Punk's rapidly advancing figure jerked to a stop. His halted feet kicked up a spray of fine dust from the soft earth! In the dark night illuminated by the moon Gaal, Punk's eyes gleaming with azure light snapped to the left, and he raised his staff before his chest without hesitation!
Clang!!! A crisp tremor rang out before Punk. The fiery-red, ruby-set tip of his staff spun down into the dust like a bird falling from a branch. A dagger gleaming with cold green light flashed past Punk's nose, as though it were about to tear apart the entire night with one strike. The fleeting green streak was like a delicate thread of silk in the darkness—sharp and cold!
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