Sudden Ambush / The First Battle Ends
On the outer ring, Little Eleven's swallowtail blades danced like butterflies flitting among flowers, having already brought down four short-eared gray wolves. Skeleton Xiaobai had only just stabbed his second, and three gray wolves were already clinging to him. The shrill scraping of their bites reminded Chen Mo of chalk sliding across the blackboard when he was a child.
A much bigger-looking gray wolf nimbly slipped into the inner circle, sprinted a few steps, and leaped at Little Goldie. Duo Gu, standing beside Little Goldie to protect him, sent it flying with a punch, rolling more than ten meters away.
The middle-aged warrior hadn't even moved his feet.
Chen Mo knew perfectly well that this guy was Little Goldie's backup.
He wasn't here to deal with the demon tree. He was here to deal with Chen Mo.
As the demon tree roared again and again, the wolf pack grew ever more frenzied. More and more gray wolves raced into the clearing, only to be sent flying in all directions, one after another.
The wolves' fury was useless. The team that had come this time had overwhelming firepower; the dark demon tree's fate had been sealed from the start.
By the time the great tree crashed to the ground, the skeletons had gained a few rows of tooth marks and the zombies' iron buckets had a few dents, but the entire party was unhurt.
Little Goldie clapped his hands.
"Thanks for the hard work, everyone. You did a good job with the mission. Now it's time to collect our rewards!"
"Black Eyes, go dig out the demon tree's heartwood."
"Aili, there's a pool to the south. There might be some excellent medicinal herbs nearby. Go take a look, and be careful when you gather them!"
"Eleven, go protect her. Don't let any wild beasts disturb Aili while she's gathering herbs!"
"Come on, come on, let's hurry. We need to get back to Breeze Path before dark. Everyone, get moving!"
"Quick, quick!"
Little Goldie's arrangements were quite thorough. It was easy to see that, on Blue Star, he'd have made excellent material for a class officer in elementary school, a Young Pioneers leader in middle school, and a student council member in college.
Aili walked into the forest without looking back. Little Eleven glanced back several times, but in the end he stamped his foot and hurried after her.
As for Chen Mo, his assigned task was to break open the demon tree and dig out the deep-black heartwood inside.
Chen Mo and Skeleton Xiaobai lay head to head on the dark demon tree's corpse. Chen Mo positioned himself facing Little Goldie, slowly drawing the short knife in his hand across the bark while keeping his eyes fixed on Little Goldie and Duo Gu.
After watching the two herb gatherers disappear into the woods, Little Goldie turned back. One corner of his mouth rose high, twisting into a deliberately sinister smile.
"Poor little thing. Looks like you've accepted your fate!"
Chapter 7: Sudden Ambush
Little Goldie was now completely immersed in his own excited speech, as though he stood center stage with everyone's eyes on him.
"What a pity!" His voice rose and fell with exaggerated regret. "Everyone praises your extraordinary talent. You got washed up at Black Raven Castle from some godforsaken corner of the world, and in just a few dozen days, you learned the local language and writing!"
"Tsk, tsk. You climbed from the lowliest servant to a preparatory apprentice. That old fellow Jiuwei even said that maybe in another six months, you could summon zombies and become a Formal Apprentice just like me!"
Little Goldie's lips curled in a sneer. "But you know, I can dig out dozens of so-called 'geniuses' like you from my family's slave pens every year! And what good does that do them?"
"The obedient ones become my dogs. The disobedient ones get fed to my dogs!"
Little Goldie's pitch climbed higher and higher, as though he were a bard performing a song.
"So what if you train your spiritual power to the highest level? Would the great lords of the underworld lower themselves to pay attention to a nobody with no background like you?"
"Stop dreaming! Your lowborn status means you're not fit to enjoy any rights!"
"You should die here and rot here!" he almost roared. "Your flesh and blood will become the richest fertilizer for the next dark demon tree, waiting for me to come back and harvest it!"
"As for the longest bone in your body... I'll carefully polish it into a bone staff and make it a trophy on my path to a spirit pact!"
He paused, as though recalling something amusing, and gave a low, rasping chuckle. "Ah, I forgot to tell you. I've already collected eleven 'masterpieces' like you. And you'll be the twelfth."
"What a... perfect number!"
Little Goldie's hand began waving of its own accord, his fingers tracing circles back and forth in the air, his eyes shining intensely.
Chen Mo had a vague feeling that there was something a little mentally wrong with this guy.
He chose to needle Little Goldie a little with his words.
"Are you jealous of me? Jealous that I've earned Aili's favor, while she doesn't want anything to do with you?"
"Nonsense!!!" Little Goldie's shriek instantly tore through the air, like a bird with its throat pinched, shooting toward the sky before abruptly crashing halfway.
His voice cracked.
Chen Mo didn't stop working. He tossed the freshly dug-out heartwood toward the bag by Little White's feet, raising his voice at the same time. With just the right touch of anger, as though he had been backed into a corner, he shouted, "Then why?! I've told you eight hundred times, I have no interest in Aili! Why won't you leave me alone?!"
The young preparatory apprentice's face appeared slightly flushed, and his hands trembled a little. The piece of black heartwood missed its mark and fell to the ground with a clatter. Chen Mo immediately bent down to pick it up.
His opponent's display of having "lost his cool" made Little Goldie pause for a moment before he burst into a rasping laugh.
Executing a commoner was like crushing an ant to him, nothing new. Those numb lambs awaiting slaughter never even struggled, leaving him with no outlet for the bellyful of "villain speeches" he had carefully prepared, an uncomfortable feeling.
Why did villains always love to prattle on at crucial moments? Probably because... how lonely it would be if no one appreciated their brilliant schemes! If they couldn't show off to the dying person before them, where else could they do it?
"All right, all right," Little Goldie drawled, smug as though granting a favor. "Since you've asked so sincerely, I'll show you mercy and tell you..."
Just as Little Goldie was gloating and preparing to deliver his declaration of judgment, Chen Mo jerked his head toward the south!
His pupils abruptly widened, his lips parted slightly, and his face was full of shock, as though he had seen something extraordinary!
"What?" Almost by reflex, Duo Gu and Little Goldie jerked their heads around to follow Chen Mo's gaze. The forest still rustled, and the grass still rippled.
But the instant their gazes shifted-
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Crisp, rapid gunshots, utterly out of place in this world, suddenly exploded across the open meadow!
This was the moment Chen Mo had been waiting for! Several minutes earlier, Skeleton Xiaobai, crouching on the ground, had silently pulled that cold metal creation, the Type 95-1 automatic rifle, from beneath his empty ribs.
Little White adored the thing.
After all, he was a skeleton spearman. Who said an automatic rifle didn't count as a spear?
For an ordinary skeleton from Ghostfire Alley, nothing so "valuable" had ever been stuffed into his chest in his life. In the past, fitting two packets of magic dust in there had been the height of Skeleton Spearman Little White's wealth.
Though his limited intelligence couldn't precisely measure the thing's value, he could feel the power and beauty contained in the steel creation in his hands. Like a Sith Lord's armor or a dread knight's long blade, the moment he gripped it, even his empty skull couldn't help swaying slightly.
For this fatal strike, Chen Mo and Little White had practiced countless times. In the end, Chen Mo had devised an almost bizarre shooting posture that only a hollow skeleton could manage.
With his back to the enemy and remaining in a crouch, Little White deftly released the safety, reversed the rifle with its muzzle pointing backward, and rested the barrel securely between his tenth and eleventh ribs.
The skeleton's skull hung low, level with his rib cage. His empty eye sockets were now upside down, fixed firmly on the rear-facing sights!
Bracing the gun on his ribs, firing backward!
When Chen Mo pretended to pick up the dark heartwood that had fallen to the ground, his fingers seemingly inadvertently pulled aside a corner of the filthy "shroud" wrapped around Little White, exposing the sights' field of view.
Next came that exaggerated turn of the head-an old trick that never failed to distract.
It was corny, but it worked.
Sure enough, Little Goldie and Duo Gu fell for it. It had never occurred to them that, at such a distance, a preparatory apprentice who didn't even know a proper spell could pose any threat.
Never mind that Chen Mo didn't know any offensive spells yet. Even a full-fledged mage needed a considerable windup before casting. If the distance wasn't great enough, a nimble warrior would have time to put three slashes and six holes in you while you chanted.
So Duo Gu and Little Goldie had no idea that death was upon them.
In the split second their gazes were drawn away, Little White steadily pulled the trigger.
Duo Gu was the first to be shot.
From the beginning, Chen Mo's target had been this ranked warrior, the strongest fighter on the entire team.
Duo Gu had been standing respectfully behind and to one side of Little Goldie. Perhaps because he had gone without sleep all night while remaining on guard, the middle-aged mercenary was somewhat tired. Distracted by Chen Mo's little trick as well, he failed to notice Little White's attack immediately.
It wouldn't have mattered if he had. At this distance, how could a body of flesh and blood possibly outrun bullets traveling at nearly a kilometer per second?
Having already set the fire selector to the intended position, Little White fired a long burst.
At least half of the ten bullets tore into Duo Gu's body. Unluckily for him, the second bullet struck his neck, ripping through flesh and piercing the middle-aged warrior's carotid artery.
The fourth bullet struck his head right after.
It was clear that Little White wasn't very good at controlling recoil yet; the muzzle kept rising. Still, the skeleton spearman was quite steady, controlling the muzzle's sway remarkably well.
Blood sprayed into the air in a crimson mist. Duo Gu didn't even have time to make a sound. He barely managed to clutch at his throat and cast Chen Mo a look of disbelief before toppling stiffly like a wooden stake.
So what if he could fight dozens of skeletons? Before the violent aesthetics of firearms, humans and ghosts were equal.
The sudden gunfire startled Little Goldie. He didn't seem to realize what had happened right away.
The Young Master Zircon made a fatal mistake: he tried to pull his warrior attendant up.
Another long burst followed!
Little Goldie's slender body jerked as though struck hard by an invisible sledgehammer and toppled backward. Blood traced a long arc through the air, perfectly marking the trajectory of a life falling.
Chapter 8: The First Battle Ends
As Chen Mo gave the order to finish them off with more shots, he himself shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bow.
He had rehearsed this life-and-death struggle in his head countless times.
Sure enough, the instant Little Goldie was shot and fell, the two zombies immediately let out furious roars and charged over with shuffling, limping steps.
Little White swiftly righted the muzzle and fired the remaining bullets into the two figures lying on the ground. Then he ran off in the opposite direction, man and skeleton circling toward the edge of the meadow.
A perfect reenactment! It was the spitting image of the zombies kiting the demon tree just now.
Speed measured the distance between life and death.
That was precisely why Little Goldie had insisted on bringing Duo Gu, the warrior. With only his two zombies, he might not have been able to stop Chen Mo if he had truly made up his mind to run.
Only six or seven seconds passed in all. As the mage's life force rapidly drained away, a phantom altar abruptly appeared and forcibly sucked in the two rampaging zombies, banishing them back to the cold, gloomy underworld.
Chen Mo immediately called for Little White to go back and finish them off, while he himself remained more than twenty meters away, his right hand gripping the sweat-slick pistol tightly inside his clothes.
Take a risk? Was he kidding?
He knew exactly where he stood. Right now, he was the "bit player" who could team up with Kobe to score eighty-one points; the "Later Lord" who could shield Zhao Yun behind him and fight his way through Changban Slope in one go!
Once he raised his spiritual power... it would be the story of "my mom and I sweep through another world"!
He could leave the finishing blows to Little White.
Skeleton Xiaobai ambled over and drove the half-length bone spear in his hand heavily into Duo Gu.
The middle-aged warrior twitched. When the bone spear was pulled out, another stream of blood spurted onto the emerald-green grass and splashed all over Little White.